


The Edge of Madness

by Chya



Category: CI5: The New Professionals
Genre: Action/Adventure, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-12-30
Updated: 2013-12-30
Packaged: 2018-01-06 18:38:27
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 22,818
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1110212
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chya/pseuds/Chya
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The following reports detail the investigation CI5 carry out into the transport of illegal aliens into the United Kingdom. </p><p>The case is of particular interest to CI5 as there is a suggestion that the an old nemesis, Evelyn Sangford, responsible for the torture and breakdown of a CI5 agent may be involved. Malone sends his best team, Curtis, Keel and Backus, undercover, but what happens when Keel goes missing?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Waiting to Die

Brian Roberts sat at his desk reading the report in front of him with some consternation. The report in itself was nothing unusual. A random search of a lorry had yielded twenty-two illegal immigrants. The driver, a Dutch citizen by the name of Ton Swieteg had of course declared that he had no knowledge that the immigrants were in the lorry, but he did let slip a name that he had obviously thought held some importance with the immigration officers. The name meant nothing to the officers, but it did to their superior, who was now reading their report. Even more disturbing was the incident that had led Brian Roberts to examine this report now.

He sighed, and made the call.

*****

Elsewhere, Harry Malone sat at his desk reading the report in front of him with some worry. There had been a hijacking in Oman that had resulted in the theft of some Uranium 238. Most of it had been recovered which had satisfied the local authorities, but Malone knew that the small amount still missing was enough to provide a world threat.

A tap at the door to his office, and a quiet cough brought Malone back to the present. He regarded the young woman standing there, "Yes, Miss Backus?" his tone implied that he was not happy at being disturbed.

Tina Backus knew her boss well enough not to be intimidated by his tone, not that she was easily intimidated under any circumstance. "I have a Brian Roberts calling from Dover Immigration, he-"

"Brian Roberts? Well I never." Malone smiled sadly and paused before frowning at Tina, "Put him through, please Miss Backus." The young woman acknowledged his request and went back to her post.

"Brian, it's been too long," Malone greeted the handsome middle-aged man that appeared on the monitor. "I trust Susan is keeping well?"

"We're divorced, now, sir," Brian Roberts's expression was rueful.

"Oh, dear, so sorry. Not as a result of Louise -?" There was genuine concern in Malone's voice.

"I'm afraid so, sir." Roberts looked away from the monitor, his jaw clenching even as he tried to produce a polite smile.

"How is Louise? Any change?" A part of Malone was hopeful even though he already knew the answer.

"No, she's still - well, you know, sir." Malone sympathised with the man's pain at his daughter's condition, something that Malone had been responsible for. Not the first casualty, and unlikely to be the last, but certainly the most painful.

"Indeed, indeed." Malone's expression turned grim. "Well, I'm sure you didn't call to exchange social pleasantries, what can I do for you?"

"Sangford. Evelyn Sangford." Brian Roberts was bitter, though his expression was carefully hidden.

For once in his life, Harry Malone was speechless.

*****

" '...the world is a lonely place, and I feel as though I spend each day simply existing and waiting to die. Please help. Desperate from Dorset.' That's sad. Clich, but still sad," exclaimed Chris Keel, holding a magazine at arms length above him as he lay on his sofa.

"Mmmmm," replied Sam Curtis, staring at his newspaper at the table.

"Are still staring at page three?" Chris turned over, giving his partner the most accusing stare he could come up with.

"Huh?" Sam glanced at Chris, "No," he said, hastily turning a couple of pages. "Anyway, what are you doing with a teenage girl's magazine?"

"Picked it up from a bench when I was staking out the park yesterday." Chris grinned.

"Oh yeah, that's your excuse." The phone ringing interrupted Sam to summon them both to CI5 headquarters.

*****

Malone introduced Brian Roberts, dressed in a neat suit to his top team as a former operative. He explained that Roberts's daughter had also been an operative, but had been invalided out nearly three years previously. Malone explained that Louise was the reason that Roberts was with them on this occasion, although strictly as an advisor.

"Louise Roberts's last mission with CI5 was to nail Sangford. We didn't realise at that time how dangerous he really is. He was small fry, or so we thought, and not even particularly dangerous. He was gunrunning, and it was a joint operation between CI5 and Interpol. Louise was to get close to him, which she did very well. Unfortunately, we had a mole at this end that blew her cover. We caught the mole, but before we could pull her out, she was caught." Malone paused, unable to decide how to continue, but he was saved as Roberts took up the story.

"Sangford's father is a genius scientist, specialising in nuclear physics. But he's also mad as a -, well he's a sadist. He likes experimenting on people using drugs, pain, whatever took his fancy for no reason anyone could fathom." Roberts swallowed, "Sangford let him experiment on Louise."

Malone interrupted. "By the time we found her, Louise was... She's been in a private clinic ever since." Malone took a breath. "Sangford disappeared, and we were never able to trace him. But it seems that he has finally resurfaced. A lorry driver carrying immigrants was stopped at Dover yesterday. It was a standard catch, but the driver mentioned Sangford's name. It seems he had the impression Sangford was of some importance over here."

"The driver was brought before the magistrate this morning, and because he was a Dutch citizen, he was to be held in remand," explained Roberts. "He tried to escape, and was shot dead on his way to the prison in Canterbury. Now, with the amount of immigrants being brought into the country at the moment, the immigration service has compiled a comprehensive catalogue of movements of key vehicles and personnel. We don't arrest everyone because we need to get to the root of the smuggling rings, and there are several which muddy the water somewhat. Most of the immigrants get transferred at Calais Lorry Park, or one of the warehouses nearby to the container that brings them over."

"Container?" whispered Spencer to Backus.

"The bit that carries the load and is attached to the cab, stupid." Tina whispered back. "Containers can be loaded onto a boat by crane and stacked like so many boxes, or travel attached to the cab as a lorry -"

"Ahem!" Malone's sarcastic voice interrupted before continuing. "The lorry that immigration pulled up was a 'Westland' lorry. They have their own warehouse in Calais which immigration have their eye on. They know that immigrants are going through there, and that some of Westland's lorries are visiting the warehouse after they've been to the weighing station, presumably to pick up their illegal loads. The interesting thing is that while the owners of Westland seem to be legitimate, albeit retired, businessmen, it is managed by a small Dutch agency, Taflje. The director again, is a genuine retired businessman, but his manager is one Evelyn Sangford.

"Although Westland and Taflje are Dutch, Taflje has an office in Dover, whilst Westland has a warehouse in Ashford, near the weighing station. And, to top everything off, the old Sangford Estate, between Dover and Ashford, which used to be Sangford's base of operations has just changed tenants. The new tenants are Westland.

"Westland have been advertising for staff, and I am reasonably certain that they will accept the CV I have submitted on behalf of Miss Backus - "

"Wait a minute, sir!" Roberts interrupted, causing the rest of the agents to cringe on his behalf. "You surely don't intend to send that chit of a girl in - "

"I understand your concern, Mr Roberts," Malone said patiently, "but Miss Backus is far from being a mere chit of a girl."

"So was Louise," protested Roberts, "You can't let them do to her what they did to Louise."

Malone took a deep breath, knowing that one of his agents going through the same trauma as Louise Roberts was a very real possibility. "The same could happen to any one of my agents, Mr Roberts. Doctor Sangford was well known for his experiments on men as well as women. I do not intend to let that happen to any of my agents. Miss Backus is more than qualified, and has encountered men, and women, far more dangerous than Mr Sangford."

Roberts opened his mouth to protest further but changed his mind and leaned back. He folded his arms, and nodded his acceptance, although his posture indicated that he was far from happy.

Malone ignored him and continued with his instructions. "Mr Keel, I have found you some employment as a lorry driver for Westland to keep you out of mischief. Mr Curtis, you're with me. That will be all."

"Looks like this could get personal," Sam muttered to Chris.

"Looks like it already is," Chris replied.

*****

Curtis and Malone drew up outside the small private clinic just outside of Rochester. Roberts had declined to accompany them, as his ex-wife was more than likely to be there. Malone missed the look of agony that passed fleetingly across Roberts face.

The nurse was expecting them and led the two agents to Louise Roberts's private room. It was bright and airy with a view that look over cultured lawns and flowerbeds, but the sole occupant of the room did not appreciate any of it.

Louise sat upright in her bed, looking the image of her father. A young woman in her mid-twenties, she had straight auburn hair that framed an innocent and pretty face though at the moment it was too pale and thin.

But what caught Sam's attention were the girl's eyes. Large and luminous, the blue-grey orbs stared at nothing. Not the calm stare of the catatonic or the empty stare of the dead, but the frightening stare of the soulless, the stare of someone who knows she is dead, and is simply waiting for her body to catch up. Sam sincerely hoped that he never saw that look again.

Malone spoke gently to Louise in the vain hope that she might just respond to something concerning Sangford. When he gave up and left the room with Curtis on his heels, he could not help but feel disappointed.

Clicking heels brought his attention to the attractive middle-aged woman walking towards him. She stopped in front of him, and he gestured for Curtis to stay back. She stared at him with pure hatred.

"Susan -" he started, knowing she had never forgiven him. She spat in his face then continued on her way without so much as a backward glance.

*****

Chris Keel was drinking coffee in the Westland warehouse in Calais and wandering around the loading bay when he heard voices. The two men loading his container were having a whispered argument in French about which boxes to load.

"I tell you, Henri," a whining voice came, "we should load the real goods. This guy is new, we don't know if he could be nosey or what!"

"But the under-schedule says to load the special consignment, as Ton was scheduled," a rasping voice answered.

"This schedule was done before Ton got shot," whined the first voice.

"Idiot should not have taken Avi's load of immigrants, he was no good with people," Henri groused.

"I still say we load this guy up with a safe lot, we can add some Sri Lankans from the basement, and see how he does. If he fails, then we lose nothing. Come on, Henri, it's the safest thing to do."

Henri paused, then, "No, we follow the under-schedule that we have. The boss would not be happy if we changed his plans, particularly as this is the big one. It may even work to our advantage that he does not know what he is carrying."

Chris heard the distinctive sound of the container doors shutting, and ducked behind the cab. He made as if he was walking casually from the coffee machine, and bumped into the two men, favouring them with a blank smile. He never saw the third man who watched his retreating back with narrowed eyes. This new driver needed watching.

On the ferry across the channel, Chris found Sam Curtis leaning over the stern watching the churning wake of the vessel. The man watching them saw two strangers passing the time of day. But he was deaf, and like a lot of people who are deaf from birth, he was adept at lip reading. By the time the driver and the other man separated, the deaf man had enough to know that the driver worked for more than Westland.

He walked through Dover as a foot passenger and seated himself on the seafront at the entrance to the docks. When at last the Westland lorry came through, the deaf man opened his laptop and sent an email to Sangford. That done, he went back into the docks to catch the next ship back to Calais.

*****

Tina sat in the office overlooking the dual carriageway that linked the Eastern and Western Docks in Dover filing her nails. She had found herself being little more than a secretary to Sangford himself, and since he seemed to expect an airhead, an airhead was what he got.

He was a genial man of around fifty years, and if she had been a genuine secretary, he would have been a good boss. He was a trim 5'10", had thinning sandy hair and beard, and had green-grey eyes that looked out of round, gold rimmed spectacles. He dressed in light suits that always seemed a little rumpled, and he carried an old walkie-talkie around with him at all times, which seemed necessary for the job. He made it clear that he despised technology, however, only using what he had to. He did have one peculiarity; he kept an old serrated hunting knife about his person that he used primarily for cleaning his nails.

As soon as Sangford announced he was going out to lunch, Tina sat herself at his computer. So far, she had trawled through all the paperwork under the pretence of re-organising the filing, which had badly needed doing in any case. There had been nothing to find. The computer had nothing she could find either - he only seemed to use the email program. But while she was on the machine, an email came in stating that the 1435 sailing on Sea France's Pride of Uxbridge had arrived. Giving up, Tina covered her tracks and sat back at her desk with plenty of time to spare before Sangford came back.

It was only while she was bored, and staring absently at the sailing schedules taped to the monitor in front of her that she realised that there was no 1438 sailing. Neither was there a vessel named Pride of Uxbridge. More than that, all the 'Pride of -' vessels belonged to Sea France's main rival, P&O. Maybe it was code for a time and place for a meeting?

When Sangford returned, he sent Tina off to lunch. She met Sam Curtis in an ice cream bar two streets away.

*****

That evening, Chris Keel shoved his hands deeper into his pockets as he made his way to the Holiday Inn where all Westland's drivers stayed. He had been cleared through the weighing station and had left the lorry at the Westland warehouse on the nearby Industrial Estate with instructions to return the following afternoon to take the lorry back to Calais and pick up another load. He was disappointed that he had not had the opportunity to investigate the load he had been carrying, and decided to persuade Curtis to go back to the warehouse tonight. He also wondered what Backup had found, if anything

The road was quiet, so when the little yellow Porsche approached, Chris took note. He knew something was wrong straightaway by the line of the car; it was aimed straight for him, and he looked for a place to hide, or get out of its way. There was nothing but empty fields. When the car mounted the pavement, Chris was ahead of it, somersaulting over the fence that separated the nearest field from the road.

Dragging his mobile phone out of his pocket, he wove his way over the field, giving the car's occupants a harder target to hit should they be carrying guns. There were no gunshots, but a little 'puff' preceded the sharp sting of the dart that took him down. He had not had a chance to hit the button that would have dialled Sam's mobile.

*****

Brian Roberts arrived as agreed at Malone's base of operations to find his old boss poring over the words scrawled on his pad. Many crushed balls of paper littered the floor near the waste paper bin. "Anything I can help with?" he asked.

"Be my guest," Malone shoved the pad at Roberts, who studied it.

"Well, it's all wrong, for a start, Sea France's vessels are all named after painters; Rodin, Rembrandt, Van Gogh, Miro, Picasso and Kandinsky." Roberts frowned. "Now, P&O's vessels have the right format; the Pride of Dover, Pride of Calais, Pride of Kent, Pride of Burgundy, Pride of Canterbury, and Pride of Bruges. But there's no Uxbridge, there never has been."

"We've already worked that much out, Brian," Malone took his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He sighed, "What else do you think?"

"Then you probably also know that there's no two-thirty-eight sailing, either." Roberts commented.

"Quite," Malone snapped, before a nasty little thought crept into his head. "Two-thirty-eight," he said slowly, before looking back at the message. "You know, I do believe you've got it!" He sprang to his feet. "Well done! Mr Spencer!" he called, "Get Mr Curtis on the line immediately, please."

*****

Sam Curtis headed into Ashford to meet Chris at the hotel and tell him that they were both to go back to the warehouse per Malone's last message. Sam shook his head. Uranium 238 and customs had not picked it up. Somebody had to be on Sangford's payroll. Sam was no scientist, but he did know that Uranium 238 could be used to 'breed' Plutonium 239, which in its turn could be used for either the benefit or the detriment of mankind, depending on whose hands it fell into. He did not much like the chances of England being any more than a hole in the North Sea once Sangford got hold of it.

He waited in the lobby of the Holiday Inn, waiting for his partner to show up. When Chris was later than he had any right to be, Sam chatted up the receptionist. Less than five minutes later he was sprinting for his car. Chris's reservation had been cancelled half an hour before Sam had arrived. Malone had known of no change in plans, or he would have mentioned it, so Sam drove the route that Chris would have taken in the hopes that he had just been delayed by a pretty pair of legs. Sam grinned to himself; if he had, she'd better have a sister.

He easily found the rubber left on the road when a car had swerved and jumped the pavement. Leaving his car, Sam looked a little closer and found scraps of material caught on the fence. He could not be sure, but the jacket Chris had been wearing might have been the same colour, so he climbed through the fence ignoring the knot of worry beginning to form in his gut. Not twenty feet into the field, Sam found what he had not known he was looking for; a familiar mobile phone. Crushed almost beyond recognition.

When Curtis called in his news, Malone felt the world turn cold. He had figured out that the U238 had arrived in Keel's lorry, and with his agent's disappearance, the email now made a great deal of sense. If one were to assume that the mismatching of vessel name and company was to indicate something was wrong, then it would have been a fair assumption that the new driver was the problem.

The next logical conclusion was that Mr Keel was now in Evelyn Sangford's hands. Even as he ordered Mr Curtis to continue to the warehouse, his stomach knotted up as he thought about what Louise Roberts went through, and wondered whether Chris Keel was bound to follow. He felt guilty and frustrated; if they had found the answer to the riddle earlier, then he would have pulled Keel out earlier, at the docks, or the weighing station.

Brian Roberts empathised with Malone, but while he hoped with all his heart that Chris Keel survived intact, he still could not help but feel overriding concern for the little Canadian girl that had set herself up so close to Sangford.

*****

Gun in hand; Sam Curtis crept into the darkened warehouse. It took very little time for him to realise that there were no guards, just the lock that he had picked, and the uniformed security patrol that took care of the entire industrial estate. The container that Chris had brought into the country was there, and had been unloaded.

Sam could only surmise that the uranium, if it had ever been there, was now gone. However, a quick look at the rest of the boxes revealed a mixture of small arms and tinned peas.

After updating Malone, Sam had tried to sleep, but instead had a fitful night worrying over his partner's disappearance. He had just settled to a doze when the phone rang and Malone told him that a vacancy had arisen, and that he should present himself at Westland's Ashford warehouse for loading duties in less than an hour.

*****

When Tina turned up at the office the next morning, Sangford was packing, and advised her that they were relocating to another office not too far away. They both went in his silver Mercedes to the Sangford Estate, and Tina found herself in a plush office on the first floor. There was twice as much paperwork to be filed than had been at the Dover office and fuelled by concern over Keel, she launched into it like a woman possessed.

A little later that morning, Sangford was on the telephone with the door slightly ajar and Tina could hear everything Sangford was saying. He was telling someone that he had brought the U238 here to the house already, and was expecting the last arms shipment to arrive this afternoon.

A few minutes after he finished the call, Sangford came out of the office with a predatory look that seemed alien on his amicable face. He told Tina that he would be unreachable for an hour or so, and disappeared into the bowels of the house.

*****

Chris Keel had awoken from his forced slumber some time previously, and was now, for the umpteenth time trying to figure a way out of his predicament. He was in a small windowless room lit by a single naked bulb and with one closed door. He was bound to an immobile chair by leather straps at his wrists, biceps, knees and ankles. His coat and sweater had gone, leaving him with his dark t-shirt, pants and trainers.

The only other thing in the room was the trolley a couple of feet away. It had a tray of syringes and small sharp implements such as scalpels and scissors on top, and a small machine with a headset and some electrodes underneath.

He stared at the needles and wondered what they were going to use. He remembered from the briefing that Sangford's father was insane and decided that he was unlikely to use anything Chris had any knowledge of. He steeled himself, recalling the training he and Sam had been on not so long ago. Sadist School, also known as What To Do If You Get Tortured. Well, he didn't know a lot, but it would not be good for Sangford to find out he worked for CI5. No, don't think about that. Truth drugs only worked if you were focussing on what they wanted to know, and if they wanted to know anything, that would surely be it.

The course had taught him that whatever they threw at you, drugs, pain, blackmail; the key was to concentrate absolutely everything on one thing. Name, rank and number, or the last thing you read for example. What was the last thing he had read; the last thing not related to the case? There was that stupid magazine with Sam. What were the words? Oh yeah '...the world is a lonely place, and I feel as though I spend each day simply existing and waiting to die...'. Now that was not an appropriate thought.

He heard the door open and looked, and for the first time saw the face of Evelyn Sangford. The man that followed Sangford in was, without a doubt his father. The same face with more lines and sandy hair turned grey, and the same green-grey eyes, though watered down, and a manic energy that kept them constantly on the move. As the old man checked his needles, Sangford bent over the captive agent.

"I do not need to know your name, or anything else about you but this," he said in that gentle voice, "For whom do you work?"

Chris smiled, "Last time I looked I was working for you." Although he was expecting the blow, Chris was unprepared for the sheer force that left him dazed and uncertain as to whether his jaw was broken.

"I know you have another employer, my friend, I just need to know who it is so that I can be prepared for whatever they might throw at me."

Keel rolled his eyes before bringing them back to meet Sangford's. Blue eyes met brown, and held. Doctor Sangford stood by the needle trolley and shifted uncomfortably, the battle of wills creating a tension that was almost palpable. With neither man willing to back off, Sangford gestured to the doctor without breaking contact with his captive.

The contact held when the needle went in, it even held when Chris' eyes glazed over. Only when his body slumped over did the contact break.

Sangford lifted his prisoner's head up by the hair, and was satisfied to find the younger man still conscious. "Disorienting, isn't it?" he smirked. "Certain muscle groups refusing to function, eyes unable to focus, and words unable to form. Don't worry, this drug is quite well known, and wears off fairly quickly. I can't say the same for any of my father's creations, however. Let's hope you don't need his persuasive techniques, eh?"

The younger Sangford reached under his jacket and pulled out his knife. "I think we'll start with this." He showed Chris the serrated edges, before letting go of his hair, and using it to cut away his t-shirt. He pressed the blade against the skin beneath, and smiled at the tiny beads of red the popped up. "I like this drug because your brain can't work out where the pain is coming from." With that, he pressed harder and ripped the blade through unresisting flesh sending a small spray of red through the air.

*****

Having spent the morning sorting the boxes from the container, and loading the 'special' boxes onto a small truck, Sam was told to get in and ride with the others to help unload at the other end.

*****

Sorting through the new batch of filing that Sangford had left for her, Tina finally pieced together his plan. Smuggling immigrants was only a smokescreen and a means to make money. The real crime was something else indeed.

She had found copies of letters to key parliamentary personnel that could be seen as innocent if the reader did not know about the uranium, but were but were explicitly incriminating when the reader knew.

Sangford was going to attempt to potentially take over the world, chunk by chunk, and he was starting by hijacking the houses of parliament to gain control of the UK.

*****

Through half open eyes, Chris observed the world flowing and distorting around him. His normally sharp senses, dulled and distorted by the drugs, were no longer able to process any information from the world around him. He was no longer sure of what was happening. He only knew that he needed to keep repeating his mantra. "... Chris Keel... world... lonely... exist ...waiting to die."

There had been more, once upon a time, but it had all been forgotten. When it had just been physical pain, he had been able to cope easily, but then the man with the needles had been allowed to play. Since then, the physical pain had become a raging beast attacking from the inside. He tried to clench his right fist, and found his left leg straining against its bonds, nothing worked right any more.

And now the games in his head. The skeletons started rattling. He kept seeing friends from his Navy days who had died, their bullet-torn bodies reaching out to him, accusing him of not being there to save them. He knew it wasn't true, and fought them off. He saw the face of each and every person he had ever killed, condemning, he fought them too but with less conviction, he was working for his country, had been under orders. But that didn't make them any less dead.

He saw the face of his wife, her fair beauty smiling, then accusing and finally condemning as blood ran through her blonde hair and spewed out of her mouth. The one person he could not fight. From that moment, his ability to fight the hallucinations and drug-spawned nightmares faded and he spiralled down into never-ending, hellish darkness, the flesh-hung skeletons providing rattling escort every inch of the way.

Sangford was frustrated with the prisoner. He had been fighting hard, but all of a sudden had become unresponsive. "Try the machine," he ordered.

Chris was ripped violently out of his dark private hell by the blinding white noise filling his head. He could not hear himself scream, was even unaware that he had.

*****

When Sangford returned to his office, he was fastidiously cleaning his knife with a white handkerchief and Tina did not miss the bloodstains that dotted the material. She told him that she was going for a break, and he waved his hand absently, uncaring.

This was her first opportunity to have a look around the house itself, and she found it to be a normal lived in country house. Until she found herself in the kitchen. A noise was coming from the pantry, and she hid beside a dresser. A nervous old man that had to be old Doctor Sangford came stumbling out of the pantry, dressed in what looked like a white doctor's coat. Cursing and mumbling, he headed out of the kitchen into the main part of the house.

Making sure the coast was clear, Tina went into the pantry and quickly found the hidden door that the doctor had not quite shut properly. She found herself in a long corridor with an open door at the end. She took a quick look through it, and found that it led straight to the car park. Three cars were parked there, and a truck was coming up the driveway.

A low moaning caught her attention, and Tina wandered back up the corridor. Turning a corner, she found a locked door, from behind which the moaning seemed to be coming. She unlocked the door, and opened it a little, a gasp escaping from her lips. Chris Keel slumped over in a chair next to a trolley. His hands and feet were held down with leather straps, and there were rips and tears in his shirt and pants. Whilst there seemed to be no heavy bleeding, there were light splatters of blood all over, and on the floor, which painted a gruesome picture.

Tina opened the door fully and entered the room. There was some relief when she felt the base of his neck to find a pulse; it was erratic, but strong. While she did not dare free Chris, as her own mission was too important, she had to risk giving him some help. She took a small bloody scalpel from the trolley and tried to put it in his hand. Chris was unresponsive, so she slid it into the leather strap, cutting him slightly, and leaving the handle jutting into the palm of his hand. His sleeves had been pushed up, and Tina exhaled sharply at the bruising and track marks that covered the insides of her friend's elbows.

A scuff of footsteps brought her back to reality, and she jumped backwards, knowing there was nowhere for her to go.

*****

Sangford cursed as he strode down the corridor. The old man was a serious security hazard. He left doors open all over the place, forgot passwords, and even his own name once in a while. It seemed as though he was always following the old man around, and cleaning up after him.

He had taken care of the pantry, and was checking all the rooms. He frowned when he saw the prisoner's door was open. He stopped at the doorway to find the girl, his assistant standing just inside the room, gaping at the prisoner. He deliberately cleared his throat, and was satisfied when the girl jumped a mile with a little scream. "Wh-what - who -?" she squeaked.

Sangford smiled. No professional, this. "How did you get in here, my dear?"

"Th- the door was open," she waved vaguely in the direction of the door to the car park. "I wanted to see more of the house..." she trailed off, her eyes big and fearful. Sangford's smile widened. Just an airhead. But airheads had big mouths. She was a good assistant though, and he could use her services still, but he would make sure she did not leave the estate alive.

He looked at her a little sadly, "I'm sorry you had to see this my dear, but don't worry," he put an arm around her shoulders and led her from the room and out into the fresh air. He locked the outside door, and put the key in his pocket. "Unfortunately that man was caught breaking into my house; a burglar, no doubt, and a junkie too by the needle marks. My man who caught him was perhaps a little rough, still, can't be helped. The police are coming to pick him up this afternoon."

*****

Sam jumped out of the truck as ordered, and took a moment to acquaint himself with his surroundings. The big Georgian house stood in a small estate with meticulously groomed lawns and a car park large enough for half a dozen cars. The truck was parked at one side of the house, from where he could see three other vehicles parked in the car park, a large silver Mercedes, a small sunflower yellow Porsche and a metallic green Kalibre.

His impression of security was that it was very lax. But then, Tina had indicated that Sangford did not trust people or technology. There were several entrances to the house, and Sam could not tell whether they were locked or guarded. Two figures came from a side entrance and headed round to the main entrance. He recognised Tina, and felt a stab of jealousy and worry as he recognised the face of the man who held her so protectively. He felt a nudge in his lower back and with a grin went to work unloading the boxes.

*****

Chris Keel awoke with a groan. His head hurt, no, everything hurt. He attempted to open his eyes, but that hurt too much. He left that task for a little while, and when he tried again, it did not hurt as much. The room was moving, but as far as he could tell, he was alone. A vague memory of someone pushing something sharp into his hand surfaced, and he looked groggily at his left hand. A knife was tucked inside the leather strap binding his wrist to the chair. He giggled without knowing why and tried to pull it out with his right hand. His thought processes such as they were, started to speed up a little, and he recalled that he was a prisoner, though he could not remember anything else beyond his own name.

A prisoner's duty was to escape. That much he was sure of. At least, he thought he was sure of it. In any case, he decided that he did not want to be in this room any longer. He focussed on the blood splattering his arms and shirt. Pain. He knew he was in pain, but could not quite work out where it was coming from. As if awaiting the question, the pain jumped into his head, expressing itself in full Technicolor. Gasping, Chris used the training he did not remember having to gather all the hurt up into a tight ball, and push it down. He knew he would have to deal with it at some point, but now was definitely not the time.

He focussed on the tray next to him, and fear shot through him pulling adrenaline behind, enabling him to think relatively clearly for the first time. The empty needles lay there, each with a minute tint of blood, his blood on its tip. The fear inspired by the needles was all consuming, and he knew with complete and utter certainty that he had to get away from this place as far and fast as he possibly could.

Grasping the knife, Chris sawed at the leather strap, cursing as his own blood hampered his task where he kept cutting himself. Eventually the strap gave, and he began working on freeing himself from the rest of the straps. When he was finally free, he fell out of the chair, hissing as the burn of circulation restored made itself know. He knocked into the trolley with the tray of needles on it, sending it flying across the room. Instinctively he threw himself behind the door, in case anyone had heard the noise. The noise.

Chris stared at the scattered needles. He had not heard a sound.

When it was obvious that no one was coming, Chris picked up a needle to use as a weapon, and crept out of the unlocked door. His legs felt like jelly, the world was tilting and spinning at crazy angles, and he was finding it almost impossible to concentrate, but he kept moving with no real idea of where he was headed other than out.

He was making his way down a corridor when something hit him on the back of the head. It did no more than make the world swim a little more wildly, and Chris turned on his attacker with no thought as to what he was doing. He plunged the needle down and saw the old man's mouth open in a scream as the needle punctured his right eye, travelling straight through into the brain behind. Chris stood back, satisfied at the irony of the man he recognised as administering the contents of the needles to him being killed by one of his own tools.

He felt no remorse at having killed the man. He was not the first, nor likely to be the last. For some reason, that thought frightened him. But he pushed it back, and continued on his journey through the house. He did not have far to go before he found a door that quite clearly led outside. He could see green grass and blue sky through the frosted glass pane that was framed in the top half of the door. He tried the handle, and shouted his frustration that it was locked.

Chris smashed the glass in the door with his bare hands, and threw himself through the resulting hole. The cuts from the glass quickly faded into the slow burn of pain that covered the young agents body; the pain that he had pushed to the back of his mind until he had time to deal with it.

He headed for the nearest car, the silver Mercedes, but the doors were locked, so he moved on to the next one, the green thing. The door was unlocked, and the spare keys were in the glove compartment. Someone was running towards him, but he ignored them; he was not going back inside that house.

*****

At the sound of glass, Sangford looked out of the window. He could see the prisoner stumbling toward the cars, and reached for his radio. Tina jumped at Sangford, her only goal to get the radio out of the man's hands. Give Chris a chance to get away, and her mission be damned; she had completed most of it - all she was doing was bringing the conclusion a little early. She succeeded in her goal, the radio smashing into the window, producing a large crack and breaking the device. Before she could follow through on Sangford, however, the bigger man had caught her round the waist, his serrated knife at her throat, and his voice whispered in her ear.

"My blade has already tasted your friend's blood. Is yours any sweeter?" He touched the cold metal to her throat.

*****

Sam passed the box over to one of the others, and was about to go back to the truck, when the sound of breaking glass caught his attention. A figure staggered from a side door of the house, and headed toward the cars. Ignoring the calls from his companions, Sam ran for the cars, instinct telling him that it was his partner and he was hurt. The figure tried the door of the Mercedes with no success, and stumbled over to the Kalibre. When the door opened, the figure virtually fell inside. Certain that it was Chris, Sam yelled his name. The figure only closed the door, and after a few seconds revved the engine. As Sam reached the cars, it was in time for him to get a good look at Chris accelerating past, his rear tyres spewing dust.

The look of wild insanity on Chris' blood streaked face was enough for Sam to try the nearest car, the yellow Porsche. The door was open, and some idiot had left the keys in the ignition. Sam hit the gas and followed the green Kalibre out of Sangford's estate.

*****

With her attention firmly on the knife, Tina pushed it away with one hand, while the opposite elbow rammed into the man's stomach. The manoeuvre only worked half as well as she'd hoped. He held on to the knife, but let her go, he blade catching the young agent across the collarbone. Tina ignored the pain with some difficulty, and stood ready to defend herself from the swiping motions the gasping man made.

He lunged, she dodged, she feinted, he parried, and she followed through, snatching the knife as he fell to the ground.

*****

Malone stared grimly at the road ahead of him, Brian Roberts rigid with tension in the back seat. The driver, Spencer, sensibly chose not to break the uncomfortable silence. Malone grabbed the mobile phone, answering before it had finished its first ring. Spencer noticed that the tension in the air visibly reduced when his boss had finished the call.

"Sir?" he asked tentatively.

"Mr Curtis and Mr Keel are off gallivanting around the countryside. We no longer need to worry about them being in the way, Mr Spencer."

Spencer allowed himself a small smile. Curtis and Keel were all right.

Roberts's voice came grimly from the back; "Your Miss Backus is the one most likely to be in any danger, now."

"Indeed, Mr Roberts," Malone could not quite keep the anxiety from his voice, "Indeed."

*****

When Chris saw the yellow Porsche following him, the adrenaline of fear pumped through him. They would not take him back alive. He abandoned the careful line he was taking in the car, and hit the gas, determined to escape.

Sam followed the green car through the twists and turns of the narrow country road that led to Sangford's estate. There were no turnings off that Chris could take, for which he was grateful. .

Eventually, the country road turned into an A road and Chris took the first turning he could find, which took him straight down a slip road onto a busy motorway. He very quickly decided that he had made a mistake coming onto the M road. It made his head hurt trying not to hit anything else. He knew he could not keep it up, and some innocent would get hurt. He took the next exit, and, sure enough, the yellow car followed him.

Sam was relieved when the green car took the slip road off the motorway; the other vehicle was careening all over the place. The Porsche was certainly faster than the Kalibre, but Sam had no intention of heading his partner off. Not unless he had to. Two roundabouts, and three irate truck drivers later, they were on the Brenzett Bypass, a long, smooth empty piece of new road that led from the rolling Kentish Hills to the flat marshes of Romney. The Kalibre picked up speed and the Porsche matched it. At over one hundred and thirty miles an hour, the three hundred yard warning was too late to slow down enough to take the small roundabout that marked the end of the bypass.

*****

Tina fell backwards with a yell as Sangford tackled her below the knees, and the knife skidded somewhere behind her. Sangford threw himself on top of her, but rolled, avoiding his crushing weight. She desperately searched for the blade, in the knowledge that should he regain control of it, it would be herself that would most likely end up dead. Somewhere below, she could hear shouts and gunfire, but that was a battle somewhere else. She needed to concentrate on this one.

A glint of metal drew her attention, and she made a grab for the blade on the floor. Her fingers were mere millimetres away from touching the thing when she was wrenched away by the hair. Sangford paused to smash her head into the floor a couple of times before getting to his feet, and taking a moment to catch his breath. He bent to pick up the knife, but his shaking legs would not support him, and he dropped to his knees. He managed to secure the blade, then slowly forced himself to stand up. He turned around a little unsteadily, to find the girl, standing, waiting for him.

*****

As the four by four screeched through the gateway to Sangford's estate, Malone received a call from the warehouse team. It was secure. There was some gunfire exchanged as the CI5 personnel pulled up to the house, some of the men still unloading unwilling to be caught. Others surrendered straight away, but most of these were temporary workers who did not know why they were being caught.

When the men had all been taken care of, with a gesture, Malone sent his men off around the house, to surround and enter.

*****

Adrenaline was singing through Sam's blood, warring with the anxiety over his partner. Both cars had come infinitely close to terminating their journeys in the concrete barrier of the Brenzett Roundabout. It had taken every inch of Sam's skills as a driver to follow the Kalibre across the roundabout and down into another narrow country lane. How Chris had made it, Sam had no idea; he was becoming increasingly concerned at his partners driving. The normally smooth piloting skills Chris possessed seemed now to be non-existent as the car slewed and fish-tailed for no apparent reason.

The narrow country roads of the marshes were like a maze, and Chris did his damndest to lose the yellow car. But the driver was too good. Or maybe it was his own driving that was not good enough. The road was swinging wildly in front of him, double vision making it harder to focus. Faces were haunting his vision now, and one hand tried to brush them away so that he could see out the windscreen.

*****

Tina yelled as she launched a flying kick at the man, catching him in the shoulder and forcing him to drop the knife as he moved to the side. Both combatants ended up on the floor, but Sangford was faster to his feet. As Tina shook her head to clear it, Sangford loomed over her, his eyes promising death.

*****

Malone and his men found very little resistance as they made their way through the house. The odd shot could be heard where someone objected to the servicemen's presence, but the majority of people encountered where either innocent civilians, or simply recognised when they were out numbered. Malone was pleased but not surprised that Roberts's training came back to him so well. He always had been a good man to have in a corner, and he had been sad to lose the agent to matrimony and fatherhood.

The yell that came to Malone's ears galvanised him into running for the stairs, a white-faced Roberts hot on his heels. He recognised Tina's voice, but somewhere in his mind, he heard it as Louise's screams.

*****

Sam was beginning to quietly panic, the Kalibre was moving increasingly erratically, and the Porsche was running out of petrol, or, according to the fuel gauge, had already run out. He must be running on fumes. He drew closer the green car, hoping that Chris might just recognise him and stop. But what he saw next made his blood run cold.

When he noticed the Porsche close the gap between them, Chris took a good look in his rear-view mirror, just a glance, but the glance turned into a stare. He knew the driver. His fading mind struggled with the thought, before throwing out a name. "Sam?" he asked out loud, before a noisy horn called his attention to the windscreen and the bulldozer he was about to hit.

*****

Malone ran towards the room where Backus' shouts were coming from, worry that he refused to acknowledge fuelling his progress, Roberts breathing hard down his neck. They reached the doorway in time to see her lying on the floor, bleeding from numerous gashes, Evelyn Sangford standing over her. He felt Roberts move behind him, and ignoring his own instinct to protect his agent, held the other man back.

Malone knew that Tina Backus had to be the one to take Sangford down. For her sake as much as his own and Roberts's. Sangford moved, bending slightly to retrieve the knife from the floor. Before Malone could blink, Tina had planted her foot in Sangford's stomach and sent him flying over her head and crashing head first into the wall.

In another blink, Tina was on her feet, knife in her hand. A brief glance toward the doorway told her that the figures there were no enemy, and she turned her attention back to Sangford. He was out for the count, so she secured him and raised a questioning eyebrow at Malone.

*****

Sam hit the brakes, and fought to retain control as his back end forced itself forward. He span to an abrupt stop in time to see his partners car hit the blade of the dozer at an angle. The car took off, and almost in slow motion somersaulted, spinning. The loud crunch of impact sent Sam shooting out of his car to throw himself at the other vehicle, now rocking lazily on its crumpled roof.

*****

"Well done, Miss Backus. Mr Curtis has located Mr Keel, and is bringing him home." Malone smiled at Backus with confidence and relief.

Letting her own pent up worry go, Tina punched the air, "Yes!" before adding a more subdued, "Sir." But her eyes still glowed.

*****

"Noooo!" the sound ripped from Sam's throat as he reached a hand towards his partner, bloody and broken caught between twisted metal and shattered glass. Chris Keel's eyes were open and staring at him with the same soullessness of Louise Roberts.

*****

Roberts approached Tina, hand extended. "Good job," he said amicably, "I apologise for doubting you."

"Oh, there's really no need, sir, I completely understand your concerns." Tina was taken by surprised when the older man pulled her into his arms, and hugged her, silent tears escaping from beneath his eyelids.

Tina threw Malone a 'what do I do, now?' look, and was aggravated to see him just smile, and shrug before turning to answer his phone.

Roberts withdrew, "I've wanted to give Louise that hug for nearly five years. Thank you." and saluting Malone, he left the building.

Malone's face was white as he hung up the phone, and to Tina it looked as though the energy had drained out of her boss, suddenly and completely.

"Sir?" she used her voice to bring him back to the present.

"The hospital, Miss Backus," Malone whispered, a look of uncertainty passing fleetingly across his face before the Malone she knew and put up with was once more back with her, "Now."

*****

On his way out of the house, Brian Roberts picked up the car keys lying on the table by the entrance. No one stopped him when he used them to open the Mercedes, and drive away. He was never aware of the U238 nestled in the boot, or he would not have done what he did next. He drove the few miles to the coast, and stopped the car at the top of a cliff. He put his foot on the gas, and the powerful car took off and plummeted gracelessly to the ocean below.

*****

Malone stared through the glass into the sterile hospital room, his face a mask of worry. He tried so hard to think of his agents as soldiers, faceless units to be sent out into the field. But though he masked it well enough, or so he thought, he could not help but care. It cut him to the core when one of them fell, and he always knew that ultimately, as with Louise Roberts, he was the one responsible for sending them to their fate.

Sam Curtis sat by the bed of his best friend and partner, head in his hands. If only he had been faster back at the house, if only he had not been so quick to chase him, if only he had kept closer tabs on his partner, Chris might not be here. If only...

Sam felt eyes watching him, and raised his head to look through the observation window. His eyes met Malone_s and for one instant, they shared an empathic understanding. Sam glanced at his partner, and then looked back at Malone to find he was gone.

*****

Tina Backus stood at the doorway watching. Chris lay still unmoving in his bed, monitors beeping quietly in the background, mixing with the ventilator that kept him breathing.

Sam was sprawled in his chair, sleeping the sleep of the exhausted. She had known she would find him here; outside of work, he had spent almost every spare moment by his partner_s side since the accident three days ago.

Over the last few days, Sam had gone from shock into despair and guilt, while Malone had seemed to just withdraw. The news that the Uranium had been recovered was, of course good, but the news of Brian Roberts_ death on the heels of Chris_ accident, had made Malone distant, almost melancholy. Tina was now feeling as if she was the only one holding them together, her pragmatism, as always, prevailing.

She thought back to that day, and cringed at the memory of the sheer amount of blood there had been. When she and Malone had reached the hospital, Sam had been sitting in the waiting room, glassy eyed and covered in his partners blood. Once Tina had had her own superficial wounds seen to, she had joined the two men in their silent vigil. Chris had been in surgery for four long hours, before the surgeon had come and told them that his physical injuries were no longer life threatening.

The good news had been short-lived. No one could identify all the drugs he had been given, still less their effects. All anyone knew was that he had slipped into a deep coma, from which the chances of recovering were slim, because his body was slowly shutting down.

Two days ago Chris had stopped breathing. Since then, it seemed to be an ongoing battle to keep his heart beating.

Backus broke out of her reverie and entered the room. Although she was silent, Sam started awake.

"Any change?" she asked, already knowing the answer. Sam just shook his head. "Time for a coffee break," she said, indicating the door. Sam hesitated, and she gave him that look that brooked no argument. With a grateful smile he joined her on the short walk to the relatives room. Before leaving the room, he looked at Chris one more time, and shuddered as he thought of Louise.

"He looks like her," he said quietly.

"Like who?" asked Tina, though she suspected she already knew.

"Louise. Like he's waiting to die." The words seemed familiar, but he could not quite place them. He went for coffee with Backup instead.

*****

Deep within his own mind, Chris Keel was alone. He was floating in a dark void that was somehow warm and comforting, and had no inclination to leave. He had no thought, no feelings, no pain. He simply existed.

At some point he became aware of a presence, a young, blond woman, standing patiently by a doorway. He felt that he should know her, but no recognition was forthcoming, and he did not want to leave his warm, safe environment to find out.

Periodically voices that were vaguely familiar, but could not be placed drifted to him, but again, he did not want to find out who they were.

Occasionally, the woman would reach out to touch him, and after a while, he would reach out to her. Each time, as their fingers touched, a force would send her spinning away, and the voices would become louder and more urgent.

Once equilibrium returned, the woman would be back where she started; waiting patiently, and the voices would once more become a dull, occasional whisper.

Eventually, one whisper came to him and refused to leave, circling round and round, repeating over and over; "..waiting to die...waiting to die...waiting to die..." It seemed to mean something.

The woman reached out to him once more, and he reached out to her, but before they could touch, he withdrew ...waiting to die... He knew who she was. With that thought, came memory, and the pain of her death. The loneliness he had felt afterwards ...waiting to die... The friendship he had found instead ...waiting to die... The whispered voices took shape, Sam Curtis leading them. For an eternity he felt pulled between the two.

But she would always be there, waiting for him. She would wait some more. And he stepped out of the void.

*****

Sam and Backup ran back to the hospital room, familiar dread washing over them as they witnessed the flurry of activity about their friend. The dread turned to panic as some of the monitors and the ventilator were wheeled out of the room.

They pushed through, and stopped suddenly.

Chris was on his side, coughing and retching after the ventilator tube had been taken out, a nurse supporting him. Once the spasms had stopped, he rolled painfully onto his back, and saw Sam and Backup standing there dazed. Through the observation window, the shadow that was Malone smiled, nodded and departed.

"Am I still in one piece?" Chris rasped, his throat swollen and sore.

"This time," smiled Backup.

Sam's dazed look turned into mock anger. "What the hell took you so long?!" he demanded, unable to stop the happy grin that was trying to break through.

"I was waiting," Chris responded, with a weak smile pleased that his hearing was back. "Waiting for you to come and get me." But somewhere in his mind, the skeletons still rattled.

 


	2. The Edge of Madness

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The following reports detail the investigation CI5 carry out into the transport of illegal aliens into the United Kingdom. The case is of particular interest to CI5 as there is a suggestion that the an old nemesis, Evelyn Sangford, responsible for the torture and breakdown of a CI5 agent may be involved. Malone sends his best team, Curtis, Keel and Backus, undercover, but what happens when Keel goes missing?

The deaf man read the email with some satisfaction. The sender, AvengerUK, had come up with the goods. New to his payroll, AvengerUK seemed like a reliable informer, the tests he had set had given good results. It was good to have a mole in CI5.

Another email came in from his mole in the prison service. The plan had been executed successfully. He picked up the hunting knife that lay by the side of his computer and rose from his seat to get things ready to welcome his employer to his new home.

*****

Malone scratched his chin thoughtfully when he read the report. Four men had escaped from prison. Three had been quickly recaptured. The fourth was still on the loose.

The police had lost the man's trail at his old home in Kent. Malone grunted. The fourth man was Sangford, and he was not happy about that.

He saw Chris Keel arguing heatedly with Tina Backus outside, and decided against telling either of them that Sangford was out. Instead, he called his other top operative in.

*****

Sam Curtis shivered and pulled his jacket closer around him. He hated stakeouts at the best of times, but this time, it was, cold, wet, and three in the morning. He did not dare turn the engine on for heat for fear the motor would wake someone in the quiet street.

He had done a lot of legwork over the last couple of days, and thanks to the gardener at the Sangford estate had picked up Sangford's trail again. The gardener had confirmed that Sangford had been there very briefly with a deaf man that the gardener knew only as Mr Simmons. Armed with a description of Simmons and his car, Curtis had tracked him down to this house. Simmons had come home at nearly midnight, but Sam had to wait until the man decided to go out again so that he could tail him.

It was just after noon when Simmons ventured out. The deaf man went for a leisurely afternoon shopping at the supermarket, before heading out into the country.

Eventually, he turned into an old farm. Sam drove straight past, and parked in the woods a mile down the road. He went back to keep an eye on the main buildings, and while he saw Simmons wandering around and making himself at home, there was no sign of Sangford. He reported into Malone, and settled himself down for a few hours rest.

Sleep refused to come for a while, and Sam's thoughts turned to his partner. He missed the American, a new experience for him. He liked working alone, even preferred it, but somewhere along the line, he had become accustomed to Chris Keel's easy, though occasionally volatile, manner. He felt exposed without him there to cover his back.

He found himself worrying about Chris. Since the previous encounter with Sangford, Chris had been constantly angry and refused to talk to him. They had had many conversations of course, but there was no easy banter, no in depth discussions. Even as his body mended, his partner's mind seemed to be withdrawing; he frequently drifted off somewhere else, sometimes in the middle of a conversation, and it would take some effort on Sam's part to bring him back to reality.

Sam thought back to just a few days before when they had gone to a pub for a lunchtime drink. Someone had made an innocuous comment about 'bloody Yanks', nothing worth bothering about, but Chris had just flipped. It had taken all of Sam's strength along with another stranger to prevent Keel from laying into the man. Keel had stormed out of the pub, and Sam had had barely enough time to get into the passenger seat of the car before Keel had sent it screeching down the road.

But what bothered Sam the most were his partner's eyes. Whatever he was doing, whatever his mood, his eyes always had the same soulless look to them. The same look Louise Roberts had. And that look frightened him.

*****

Sometime past midnight, Sam crept toward the farmhouse. It was dark, and Simmons car was still there. He scouted round, peering through windows. With the full moon bright, he could see in one room the shape of man sleeping on an old mattress.

He was puzzled at why Simmons would sleep here when he had a house in the city, and decided to have a look inside. He found a window that was easily jimmied, the rotten wood making almost no sound, and climbed through. He was halfway through the window, when a hard object came from nowhere and laid him out cold on the floor.

The deaf man switched on the light and smiled. Sangford walked through from another room. "Good job. Lets get him downstairs."

***********

"Bottom line, please, Ms Brooks," Malone snapped impatiently at the woman on the monitor.

"The bottom line, sir," Geraldine Brooks replied calmly, "is that Mr Keel is not yet cleared for active duty."

Malone sighed, it had been nearly three months since the incident with Sangford, and his top agent had bounced back surprisingly quickly, passing all the requisite physical and intelligence tests with ease. Only psyche refused to clear the man, who was in turn driving everyone, including Malone, insane while being cooped up in the office. "Well, how quickly can you get him fit to go out in the field?" he asked, feeling his blood pressure rising.

"As I've explained before, sir, it's impossible to tell, and to be quite frank, I'm stumped as to what to do with him next." She pushed a loose strand of her greying black hair behind her ear. "At this rate, I'm quite tempted to recommend you retire him."

"Retire - ?" Malone pulled his glasses off and rubbed the bridge of his nose. He replaced the glasses, and took a deep breath. "Not until I am absolutely certain there is no other option, Ms Brooks. Now kindly explain the problem to me again." He hated the psyche aspect of his agents' well being, and saw little use for it other than as an obstacle that seemed to come up with an annoying regularity to hamper every agents' recovery.

Ms Brooks pursed her thin lips. She had explained this twice already on previous occasions, but Malone always seemed to glaze over at the jargon, so she tried a different approach. "Well, sir, it's a little strange. We don't really know what the drugs did to him, so I'll try to explain in lay-man's terms." She leaned forward in her seat, and Malone knew it was going to be a long lecture.

"To use an analogy, everyone has memories, good, bad and everywhere in between. Now, when someone has a bad memory, they can do one of two things with it. They can face it, deal with it, and put it with all the other memories to freewheel as it pleases in the subconscious.

"Or, and we all do this, Mr Keel is no exception, they can lock it in a box and hide it somewhere deep inside so that it can't get out and hurt them anymore. Until, or unless something happens to unlock the box and bring the bad memory out."

"I know all this, Ms Brooks," Malone interrupted, "I have been listening, you know."

"I realise that," Geraldine Brooks frowned at him, "now whatever happened with Mr Keel, it seems to have unlocked an awful lot of his hidden boxes, all at the same time, none of which he seems willing to face."

"His wife?" Malone asked the obvious.

"I explored that avenue, and there seem to be no issues there beyond some lingering grief and guilt which is entirely natural. There also seems to be no real problem with what happened while he was in Sangford's care."

Malone understood what Ms Brooks was explaining, but failed to see why it should stop her from clearing Keel for active duty, and said so.

"I've explained the problem, but the reason for holding him back lie in the symptoms. He has terrible nightmares of course, but what frightens me, is the anger and frustration building up inside him."

"I would think that had more to do with being cooped up here..." Malone trailed off as Ms Brooks shook her head.

"Dan Sykes had to physically pull Mr Keel off his sparring partner when he tested for hand-to-hand. He was quite intent on beating the poor man to a pulp." Malone noticed for the first time, the genuine concern in Geraldine Brooks' face. "Mr Sykes suffered a nasty black eye for his trouble, too. Nor was that the only incident. I don't think you really want an operative in the field that close to the edge."

Malone leaned back in his chair. "You're right of course, Ms Brooks," he sighed again.

"On a brighter note," Ms Brooks reached out of view for a file. "I've referenced the only other case that is relevant to Mr Keel's, that of..."

"Louise Roberts," finished Malone, sitting forward to listen intently once more. "Go on."

"Well, her case hasn't really helped Mr Keel, but his could help her."

"What do you mean?"

"Up until now, it's been assumed that Miss Roberts was in a drug induced stupor. Now, I'm wondering if the drugs simply unlocked something that was so traumatic her mind couldn't deal with it."

"I believe that option was explored, wasn't it? I recall Brian Roberts saying that the worst trauma she ever had was falling down the stairs at fourteen. She suffered a mild form of amnesia."

"Which is common of course when one receives a head wound as nasty as she did at that time. I still believe however, that there could be something else. As far as I know, no one ever asked the mother. If there is something, we could start looking for some kind of related stimulus to bring her back."

"Hmm," Malone frowned. "She's due to arrive here any minute as it happens, I'll put it to her, but I warn you, she's never forgiven me." Malone looked up at the sound of a quiet tap on his door to see Tina Backus.

"Mrs Roberts is here to see you sir," she advised him.

"Show her in, Miss Backus, thank you, oh and Miss Backus, can you tell Mr Keel to see me when he arrives." He turned back to Ms Brooks. "It seems my appointment is here, keep me updated, won't you?" With that, he switched off the monitor, and stood up to meet Susan Roberts.

"Susan, how are you?" he asked as he held his hand out, "Please sit down."

She ignored his hand, but sat anyway. Malone closed his door after sending a suitable glare toward Backus and Spencer who had very obviously noted the snub.

He took his own seat as she began speaking. "I'm not here for pleasantries, Mr Malone."

"No. I am glad you're here, though, I've just had some interesting news that may of be some use to Louise."

"I'm sorry?" she asked, put off balance.

"With my agent's experiences after the last Sangford incident to help them, our psychiatrist, Ms Brooks thinks that Louise could be trapped in some trauma she experienced."

"Of course she is! That Sangford man -!" Mrs Roberts exclaimed.

"No," Malone interrupted, "Before that. It's possible the drug unlocked some past memory that she couldn't deal with. Is there such a thing?"

"I... I don't..." her face paled, but she gained control of herself. "There's nothing that I would tell you about," she stated coldly.

"I understand," he said gently, whilst scribbling on a piece of paper. "Please, if there is something, speak to Ms Brooks. It has to be worth looking into. This is her private number." He held out the slip of paper to her. After a slight hesitation she took it, and put it in her handbag. At the same time, she drew out a small package.

"The reason I came here was that Brian's estate has finally been sorted out, and I believe that this was intended for you." She pushed the parcel across the desk toward Malone, who left it untouched.

"You could have sent it through the post," Malone remarked.

"I wanted to ask you something." She looked at him coolly. "I want to see this other agent. The one who was in that man's hands."

"I don't think that's a good idea..." A knock on the door interrupted him, and Chris Keel stepped in.

"Sorry, Sir, Backup said to just come in." Keel started to back out of the room.

"Mr Keel, come in and close the door behind you." Malone suddenly had the feeling that it was going to be one of those days. "You're here rather earlier than I expected."

"I finished early, sir," Keel responded a little stiffly, shutting the door.

"Mrs Roberts, this is Mr Keel, the agent you wanted see," said Malone, then directed his attention to Keel. "Mrs Roberts is Brian Roberts ex-wife."

"And Louise Roberts mother." He smiled sadly and held his hand out. "My condolences, Ma'am."

Susan Roberts ignored him and stood facing Malone. When she spoke, her voice was cold as ice. "I wanted to see why this man is so special, Mr Malone, to see why he got to survive while my daughter didn't." She turned to Keel, and examined him as he shifted uncomfortably. Malone was about to put a stop to this, when the change in her expression stopped him.

Her face seemed to soften as she gazed into Keel's eyes, and her own inner sadness came to the fore. She reached a hand to his face, but stopped before she touched him, bringing the same hand back to touch her own lips instead.

Keel was captivated by the compassion and understanding he saw in the woman before him. For one all too brief instant the skeletons in his head stopped rattling completely.

"But you haven't survived, have you?" She whispered, tears in her eyes "You're in exactly the same place as Louise." Suddenly the moment was over, and Mrs Roberts sniffed, took up her handbag, and with a murmur of thanks to Keel, departed.

"Mr Keel," Malone called. "Mr Keel," he repeated when his agent's gaze remained locked on the retreating Mr Roberts. "Mr Keel, are you still with us?" he finally barked.

"What?" Keel snapped spinning round to face Malone, then realising where he was apologised. "Sorry, Sir."

"Why did you finish early today?" asked Malone.

"There was no point being there, sir," Keel replied. "The shrink just keeps going over the same old stuff."

"You know that Ms Brooks is still refusing to pass you." Malone took in the clenching jaw, and the rigidly folded arms. Keel was looking down at his booted foot whose heel was trying very hard to dig a hole in the carpet.

"Yes, sir," he mumbled.

"You know also that she's mentioned the possibility of retiring you."

Keel's head shot up to stare at him with wild anger. "You can't do that!"

"I can, Mr Keel, and I will if I have to. I could suggest that you take time off..."

"But I've already had more time off than I -!" Keel snapped.

"But I'm thinking that a suspension may get the gravity..."

"Sir!" Backup's urgent voice came through the doorway, and Malone went out with Keel on his heels.

"What is it, Miss Backus?" Malone asked.

Backup said nothing, only indicated the video screen.

There was muttered "Shit!" from Keel as they took in the two men on the screen. One was the inoffensive looking Evelyn Sangford his hands playing with his hunting knife. Below him, in a straight-backed chair, was a battered and semi-conscious Sam Curtis.

"Mr Malone, are you a believer in the phrase 'third time lucky'? I am. I'm told that I've taken two of your agents out already. Miss Roberts has been committed, and Mr Keel I understand is about to put himself either in an early grave or an institution. And now I have this one.

"What do you think I should do with Mr Curtis? Without my father's entertaining little experiments, I'm afraid that I'm down to more mundane methods. Maybe I should sever his spinal cord?

"Now, I'm sure you're asking yourself, what is this all about? Well, since you ruined two of my operations, I'm going to make sure you stay out of my next one. For now, I'm going to keep Mr Curtis as my guest, basically unharmed.

"What I want is for you to give all your UK-based personnel a week off. You will instruct any agent outside of the UK, not to come into the country for that same period. You will then give my men and I unlimited access to your facilities, including your database etcetera, etcetera.

"You have until 8pm tomorrow. If this is not done, I will send Mr Curtis back to you a cripple. I will then do the same to Miss Backus, with some pleasure it has to be said as I owe her so much, then Mr Spenser, and so on, until I get what I want. I will do the same if I find any of your agents doing anything remotely like stopping me. I hope I'm making myself clear. Goodbye Mr Malone."

A stunned silence was all that was left when the video finished.

"Miss Backus?" Malone's question was implicit.

"Nothing," she said a little weakly. "The video was hand delivered to 2-9's home address - he brought it in as soon as he watched it." After a pause she asked, "Sir? What are we going to do?"

"Nothing, Miss Backus. There is nothing we can do. We cannot let this facility fall into the hands of that man." Malone's tone was ruthless. "Mr Keel, we have to finish our discussion." Malone walked stiffly back into his office with a fuming Keel behind him.

Backus and Spencer spent the next half hour in silence, examining the video, and cringing at the sounds coming from Malones office. Initially there was only low murmuring, but as time wore on, Keel's angry voice could be heard through the wall, though too muffled to distinguish words. At the end there were a couple of loud thuds, before the door slammed open, and a livid looking Chris Keel stormed out, throwing his gun and badge violently in Malone's direction. The older man ducked in time to avoid the gun that smacked through the air where his head had been and into the wall behind.

"I don't believe he did that!" exclaimed Backup, wide-eyed. For a second she was torn between seeing to Malone and chasing after Keel. But as her job always came first, she went in to see Malone, who was looking visibly shaken as he picked up the gun, a dark bruise forming at his right temple. "Sir, are you alright? What happened?"

"I had the unfortunate duty of informing Mr Keel that I was suspending him. He chose to resign instead." He gave Backup Keel's belongings. "Sort out the paperwork, would you? Mr Keel won't be coming back. Oh, and a one way ticket to Washington for him, first flight you can get."

Backup closed the door behind her. "Sir, this isn't a charade is it?" she asked softly.

Malone looked at her with a world-weariness that made him look very, very old. "I wish it was, Miss Backus, I really do, but no, Mr Keel has made his choice, and underlined it by throwing the paperweight at me." He rubbed at the bruise sounding ticked off. "Now could you get Ms Brooks on the line, I need to tell her that Mr Keel will no longer require her services."

*****

Later that night, the girl at the British Airways check-in desk looked up at her next passenger, and smiled a genuine smile instead of her manufactured smile. The man in black smiled back at her, sending her knees to jelly, and handed over his ticket and passport. "Mr Keel, is that?" she asked, reading from the passport.

"That's me." He grinned, blue eyes twinkling. He put his suitcase on the belt.

"One way ticket to Washington?" she asked.

"Yeah."

"Oh," she pouted flirtatiously. "Did you pack your luggage yourself?"

"Sure did." He leaned on the counter, and she blushed, before handing back his ticket stub, passport and boarding pass.

"Have a nice trip, Sir," she breathed.

Mr Keel gave her a short wave and disappeared towards customs.

*********

A bucket of ice-cold water brought Sam back to painful consciousness. He tried to shift against his bonds, but the electric cables that held his wrists and ankles to the chair allowed him little room to relieve his cramped and bruised muscles.

As his blurred vision cleared, he could see that he was still in the room with the camera. It was bright and clinically clean, with bland grey walls and a single steel door. Sangford was leaning thoughtfully on the wall near the door, cleaning his nails with his knife while Simmons was fiddling with the camera equipment, the empty bucket near his feet.

"They know where we are," muttered Sam.

Sangford looked up at him, "The farmhouse?" he shook his head. "We've moved on from there. That was just the mousetrap."

"They won't let you have CI5, either you know." Sam shivered with the cold.

Sangford looked somewhat surprised, "Of course I know that. The demands I made were ludicrous!"

Sam was confused, "Then what - ?"

"I intend to destroy CI5, nothing more," Sangford declared. "Every agent that has seen that tape will be looking over their shoulders, mistakes will be made."

"Every one of those agents is prepared to die; they don't scare that easily."

"To die, yes. But were you not listening? I promised them lives of torment or disability. How many do you think are prepared to face the life of a vegetable like the Roberts girl? Or the life of a paraplegic or quadriplegic as I threatened with you? How many are prepared to go down the road of insanity like Mr Keel?"

Sam sat in shocked silence. It was clear to him that Sangford was mad, but it was a madness much like the room he was in; cold and clinical.

"Speaking of Mr Keel," Sangford continued, "You will be pleased to know that he has resigned from CI5 and gone back to the United States. He boarded his plane just a couple of hours ago. As I understand it, he tried to split Malone's skull open before he left."

"He wouldn't do that," Sam croaked disbelievingly.

"But he's not in his right mind, is he? Malone, though, he gets to see his agents turn up crippled or dead one by one; and know that it's all his fault. And every time an agent is killed or maimed in the line of duty, there will be just that little bit of doubt as to whether I was somehow behind it. What do you think that will do to him? Eventually, of course, Whitehall will pull the plug on CI5, and I'll be on my way."

"Won't it ruin your plan when you let me go? If you're going to cripple me, I can still tell them what you've just said."

"I lied; you'll be dead when I let you go, although there will be no doubt as to the torture you went through first. Miss Backus I will leave alive, although no man will ever look at her again. Or should that be woman? And I have plenty of ideas to take care of a lot of agents in a lot of different ways."

"So why am I still alive?" Sam asked warily.

Sangford smiled, "I want Malone to think I'm giving him a chance, he has until tomorrow evening, and I plan to add to his video collection."

*****

Malone frowned as he switched off his monitor. The conversation that he had just had with his contact in the CIA had been intriguing. Keel's plane had landed in Washington, and they had picked his agent, ex-agent, up in line with procedure. But the man with Chris Keel's passport was not Chris Keel, even though he insisted that he was.

He decided to keep that information to himself for the time being. His gut feeling told him that Keel was still in the country and going after Curtis, for which a part of him applauded. But the other side of him worried that Keel was too unstable, and even if he did get Curtis out in one piece, what would happen then? He had told Backus the truth. Keel had attacked him with the paperweight and resigned; that had been no charade. Then there was the mole that had to be in CI5; there was no other way Sangford could have known as much as he did.

Malone made a decision that he hoped he would not have cause to regret and made a copy of all the information on the Sangford case, including Curtis' last report in. He took the file to Keel's apartment, letting himself in in the early hours of the morning and leaving it on the table, unsure even if Keel would come back here. Hesitant at first Malone looked around the flat, not knowing quite what he was looking for.

When he got to the bedroom and saw the picture lying in the middle of the bed, he knew that Keel would be back.

*****

Starting with the Sangford Estate, Chris Keel had followed Sam's trail to Simmons house. He had been using the taxi that belonged to his new friend, Andy Davies, for transport and he had smiled as he had wondered if Andy was enjoying himself, even as he had made a mental note to change out of Andy's grubby t-shirt and jeans at the first opportunity.

He had planned to watch the Simmons place, and break in if nothing happened by midnight. But the anger-fuelled adrenaline would not let him sit still for that long, and the skeletons were rattling, waiting for him to relax his guard. He had given up waiting at around eleven, and broken quietly into the house via the back door.

He had crept around the place wishing he had his gun, feeling naked without it. When he had been through the entire house finding nothing, the anger he was constantly holding in had burst out in a fit of frustration, and he had punched the wall with a yell. He had punched the unforgiving bricks again and again, stopping only when the pain in his fists was greater than the pain in his gut. He had sunk to the floor, head in hands, and stayed like that for a long time, trying to bring himself back in control.

Now, as the sun was barely making an appearance over the horizon he was headed back to his flat, on foot after dropping the car back at the taxi company. He entered his building by the rear entrance, and immediately he set foot inside the flat, he knew that someone else had been in there. There was nothing out of place, no trace, just a sense of someone else. And the file on the table. After checking the rest of the flat, and changing clothes, Chris went back to the file. As he reached his hand out to pick it up, he noticed for the first time the blood on his sore knuckles. Feeling the anger surging back, he ignored both it and the blood, and concentrated on the file in front of him, wondering who had left it.

Most of the contents of the file he already knew up to the point of Sangford's escape from prison. The anger gnawed at him as he realised Malone had not told him about it, that he had sent Sam off alone. The skeletons rattled, and he saw their grinning skulls leering at him, telling him that Sam would soon be another skeleton added to his collection.

This was the first time Chris had really stopped since storming out of Malone's office the previous afternoon, giving the skeletons the chance to push themselves into his waking consciousness. He fought to avoid looking at their faces, knowing that when he looked into their empty sockets he would drown in the hellfire that awaited him there. But they spun around him, above him and below him. Wherever he looked they were there, and when he closed his eyes, they were still there.

A persistent knocking brought him back to the real world. He sat rigidly, trying to identify the source, only relaxing when he realised a neighbour was busy hammering nails into the wall.

*****

Simmons saw the email from AvengerUK and smiled. He showed Sangford who signed 'Good job,' and went to talk to his captive.

Curtis was dozing lightly when he entered the room, but was instantly alert when the sound of the door opening woke him.

"Now is the time to start work on you," Sangford said. "The second video has been received."

"Why now?" asked Sam trying to stall.

"Tonight the deadline is up and the girl is going to clear Keel's apartment this evening. A perfect opportunity to take her and leave you there," Sangford said as he pulled his knife out. "Twelve hours to make you suffer." His grin was evil. "After all, I want it to look good."

Sam could only brace himself for the onslaught.

*****

When the taxi he had taken to the farmhouse had gone, Chris let himself into the building using a window that he had found hanging open. Like the house, it was empty, a few sticks of furniture scattered about the place, and a mattress in the corner of a smaller room.

As he travelled through the building, the skeletons were rattling again. He had not slept in over twenty-four hours, and it was getting harder to concentrate, to resist their grabbing hands and mesmerising eyes. He was only saved from them this time because of the threadbare rug that he tripped over.

Landing hard on his hands and knees sent the skeletons scuttling to the back of his mind, and he sat back on his heels to look at rug. Now partially exposed beneath the rug, was a trapdoor. Chris pulled the rug away, and opened the trapdoor to reveal a ladder reaching down about seven feet.

Climbing down the rungs and following the short tunnel, he found himself in a small, bare room. There was a cot and a chair with the remains of a meal and some magazines on the floor.

By the marks on the arms and legs of the chair, it had obviously been used to hold someone, presumably Curtis, but Chris doubted that the magazines had anything to with his partner. This was the first time Chris had really thought about Sam, about what he could be going through, and fear for his friend shot through him. He was determined to get Curtis out of Sangford's clutches in one piece, but there was one part of him that hoped Sam was already dead, free from Sangford's sadistic games.

He broke off thinking inwardly, the skeletons already trying to take advantage, and turned his attention to the magazines. They were all news and business oriented and flicking through them Chris found nothing of interest. They were spread over the floor, as if tossed carelessly, and Chris pulled a couple out from under the bed. A piece of paper dropped out of one of these with two sets of grid references.

Pocketing the paper, he looked around but could find no other clues. He found the anger rising again, but this time, did not give into the urge to hit something.

Leaving the farmhouse, Chris jogged up the road, and was relieved to find Sam's car still there. Malone had not had it removed; maybe it was Malone that had left the file, or maybe the old man was just being cautious. Hunting around the car he found that the first reference referred to the farmhouse. The second reference was an old electricity relay station only a few miles away.

He started the car and began driving toward the station, but it was not long before the skeletons started rattling again.

*****

A low moaning brought Sam back to consciousness, but it was a while before he realised the sound was coming from his own throat. With some effort he lifted his head. The room was in darkness, only the soft glow under the door reassuring him that he had not gone blind.

His head pounded incessantly, and his face was on fire. Hell, everything was on fire. Sangford had been thorough with the beating, using his fists on his abdomen, chest and face, a quirt on his arms and legs, and that knife in vicious slashes all over his body. His stomach was churning and he knew he had broken ribs, probably nose and jaw, too. He wondered how much of this Chris had endured in Sangford's care. After the car crash, it had been difficult to tell what injuries Chris had sustained from the accident, and what had been done to him by Sangford, and his partner had refused to elaborate.

Sangford himself was ruthless, all the time he was beating Sam, his expression remained cold and calm. He was just doing a job. Sam prayed it would all be over soon. If Malone walked through that door now, he would kiss him. He chuckled hysterically to himself; better make that Backup. Or Chris. Where was he?

As Sam's vision dimmed, he thought he could hear footsteps, but they faded away.

*****

The skeletons were getting more real, they were holding him down now, pinning him against something. He could feel a cold hard hand grip his jaw forcing him to look at the grinning skull in front of him. He could not help but look into those sockets, and could feel himself falling into their darkness.

A sudden crunch and the falling sensation ended with his forehead connecting with the steering wheel. Blinking away the stars, Chris sat back and took stock. The car had come to its sudden stop after ploughing into a large tree, and although it could not be driven, the damage was not too bad. The windscreen was still intact and the engine had not been pushed back, but the passenger windows were all smashed, and even from the inside he could see that the panels had buckled. He looked through the rear window, and saw the trees along the side of the road that he had scraped past without even knowing.

"Shit!" he whispered, and as the shock wore off, the anger came surging back. He wrenched open the door, and as soon as his feet hit the ground, he started kicking and thumping the car, smashing the windows and giving voice to his frustration, anger and guilt. He did not stop until he ran out of energy and slumped against the car, sliding to the ground, exhausted.

He noticed detachedly that the backs of his hands were bruising and bleeding badly now, and as he watched a crimson drop run down his arm, he started giggling uncontrollably for absolutely no reason at all.

**********

Malone stared at the clock, counting the seconds, minutes and hours as they trudged by. He knew for certain now that Keel was onto the case, had seen him go into his flat. He had stood outside in the frigid morning air debating whether to go and talk to the man, but had decided that it was best if he really did not know what was going on Keel's mind. Not yet, at least.

He hated not being in control. He hated the surreptitious looks of betrayal from some of his agents. His first rule, never get emotionally involved, was the hardest rule for even him to follow. It was difficult to think of some of these people as just units to be used.

The second video had turned up at Spencer's home this time, again delivered by hand. The man was clever. The messenger was never seen, and the threat was implicit that Sangford knew where his agents lived. He could not protect them all. He knew that he could not, would not make a move until a body turned up, be it Curtis, Sangford or Keel. He prayed it would be Sangford.

Miss Backus brought him in a drink, and left without saying a word. She had that sour look on her face that she got when she did not approve, but she understood.

He picked up the package that Susan Roberts had brought, and wondered what Brian could possibly have intended him to have. Geraldine Brooks had informed him that Susan had been to see her, and that the psychiatrists at the clinic were trying some new tests. He put the package unopened in his top drawer; he did not want to think about the Roberts family just now.

His attention moved back to the clock, and the seconds continued to march on by.

*****

Keel walked the rest of the way to the relay station, reaching it as night was falling. He glanced at his watch; only an hour to go before Sangford's deadline. His only plan was to get in and back out with Curtis before his mind betrayed him again. If Sam was in there. He had to be. Chris didn't think he could go on much more before the skeletons got their way.

*****

The door opened, rousing Sam once more. Sangford came in, with Simmons behind. The deaf man was carrying a large metal tub, and as Sam looked on in morbid fascination through swollen eyes, he lit the coals within, and carefully arranged two pokers among them.

Sangford dismissed Simmons with a shake of his head, and sat by the makeshift brazier, stirring the coals with his knife.

*****

After breaking into the relay station, Chris easily found the stairs to the lower level. The maze of corridors was lit, indicating that someone was down there, but there was no sound to give him a direction.

Physically and mentally tired, fighting off the anger and the skeletons every step of the way, made Keels journey through the maze seem to last an eternity before he found what he was looking for. A door was partly open, a man sat at a computer inside with his back to the door.

Keel cringed as the door squeaked loudly when he pushed it further open, but the man did not even pause in his typing. Was the man deaf? Then he remembered the gardener at the Sangford estate telling him about Simmons being deaf, and tiptoed forward.

Simmons was unaware of Keel's entrance into the room, until he saw the movement in the reflection of his screen. He continued typing as if he was still unaware, waiting for the man to get close enough for him to make his move.

Chris reached forward to snake his arm around the man's throat, but was caught by surprise when Simmons rolled out of the chair, and grabbed his arm. Off-balance, he fell into the punch the man threw connecting with his eye.

He rolled with the force, coming straight back to his feet to face the man off. The deaf man grinned. He loved a good fight.

His temper rising rapidly, Keel threw the first punch, Simmons dodging it easily, and throwing a punch of his own, but Keel was ready and threw himself backwards, using the momentum to kick with his feet. Simmons fell to the floor with a grunt as Keel's boot hit his jaw.

Chris was about to follow through when the scream came echoing down the corridor. Sam. The split second distraction that Simmons was unaware of enabled the deaf man to launch himself at the agent, kneeing him in the gut and doubling him over. Simmons moved to follow through on the blow, but seeing red, Keel moved faster and grabbed the other man's shirt bringing his forehead down with a crunch on the deaf man's nose.

Simmons fell to the floor and Keel threw himself on top of him, the anger blazing as punched Simmons over and over. Simmons fought back, grabbing Keel's hair and getting in some punches of his own. But he was no match for the almost berserker rage of the CI5 agent.

When the man beneath him went limp, Keel kept punching. This time it was Sam's second scream that made him stop.

Chris searched the room for some cabling, and paused at the computer screen. He saw the email from AvengerUK that Simmons was replying to, 'CI5' prominent in the text, and saved the document onto a floppy, putting it in his jacket.

*****

Sam groaned as he squirmed in his chair, trying to get away from the unspeakable agony in his shoulder and side. But the two pokers still jutting out obscenely from his body kept him pinned to the chair. He had already passed out and been roused with icy water twice.

Now, Sangford reached forward and yanked the poker out from his shoulder, causing him to scream for the third time. Another bucket of water, and Sangford pulled the other poker out, setting them both in the brazier.

When one was hot enough, Sangford stood over the semi-conscious Curtis, brandishing the glowing iron.

"Don't fret Mr Curtis, this is the last one," he said reassuringly.

*****

The clock ticked past 19.55.

"Sir!" Backup burst into Malones office.

"Yes, Miss Backus?" Backup did not think she had ever seen Malone look so tired.

"The police have just reported finding Sam's car..."

"We know where Mr Curtis' vehicle is, I thought I gave strict instructions not to approach the area..."

"No, sir, it's been moved about ten miles."

"What? Joy riders?"

"Could be, sir, but they said there was a map on the passenger seat along with a couple of grid references, one was the original farmhouse..."

"And the other?"

"An old electricity relay station a couple of miles from where the car was found."

Backup waited patiently for Malones response, but her boss just stared at the clock. The minutes stretched until the clock hit 20.00.

"Well, Miss Backus, if Mr Curtis has not been able to free himself from Sangford's clutches by now, then it's already too late for him. Lets go."

Backup nodded. "I'll clear Keel's flat tomorrow, then."

"Yes," said Malone thoughtfully, "That can certainly wait."

*****

Sangford pulled his arm back, ready to shove the glowing poker into the agent's abdomen aiming for the centre, just below the rib cage.

A hand caught his, stopping the thrust before it started, another arm went round his neck. He turned the poker, and felt the arm relax for a split second as his attacker yelped. It was enough for him twist away, and get a good look at Chris Keel, holding his leg where the poker had bitten.

"You're not supposed to be here!" snapped Sangford.

Chris' grin was feral "What can I say? A funny thing happened on the way to the airport."

Sangford backed away from the agent now stalking him, uncertain as to how to proceed. He knew people, their fears and hopes; how to destroy them with words before the first blow was even struck. He had underestimated the Backus girl before and he would never underestimate anyone again, man or woman. But this one was different. This one was a monster of his own creation, and he wasn't sure how he would react.

He licked his lips nervously, "Curtis needs your help, Mr Keel, I..."

"You want me to let you get away?" Chris advanced without so much as a glance in Sam's direction. "And let you do to someone else what you've done to us?" Chris laughed bitterly, "He would rather die."

Sangford glanced hopefully at the door.

"Simmons isn't coming anytime soon," Keel remarked, noting the glance, "And there's no one else around. Looks like it's just me and you." He lunged forward to meet the poker as it thrust toward him. It grazed his left side as he grabbed it, the pain fuelling the burning anger. He let it ignite into an inferno, and threw the lump of burning metal away, shouting incoherently as he smashed into Sangford's face.

The force of Keel's attack threw Sangford into the wall. Dazed, he nevertheless groped for his beloved knife. But Keel was there with him, his own hand gripping the blade tight just below the hilt. The two men remained locked against the wall, each trying to turn the knife against the other.

The blood from the blade biting into his hand made Keel's grip slide, cutting even deeper, but the inhuman strength born of his rage gave him the power to turn it back, and it slid slowly into Sangford's gut.

Sangford let the knife go, and in his own maddened pain clawed at Keel's face, hooking his foot behind the younger man's ankle. Off balance, Keel fell to the floor, Sangford falling on top of him, driving the knife in further. Chris brought his knee up into the other man's groin, and as the body convulsed, he pushed Sangford off, rolling to straddle him. He punched the man in the face again, and again, and when his arm became too weak, grabbed Sangford by the ears, and smashed his skull into the floor, over and over.

"Chris..." Sam's voice sounded weak even to his own ears, but he had to stop this. It was obvious to Curtis even through his wavering vision that Sangford was already dead, but his partner was still intent on bashing the man's brains out. "Chris," he tried to call out a bit more firmly, "Chris, it's time to help me. Now." But his partner did not hear him.

Eventually, the wet thumps ceased, and Sam saw Chris roll off the mangled corpse, to lie exhausted on the floor.

"Chris...?" he croaked anxiously.

"A minute, g'me a minute," his partner slurred, and Sam waited.

Chris stared at the ceiling as the skeletons laughed mockingly at him, waiting for his energy to come back. It was a long wait, and he battled the skeletons, pushing them away. He had to get Sam out of here before he could give into them. And give into them he would have to do. At this admission to himself, the skeletons backed off, and stood looking at him laughing patiently. They would wait.

Groaning Chris pushed himself to his feet, and took his first good look at Sam. He winced as he saw the bruises and blood. His face was a mess, one eye swollen shut, the other barely open, and his nose smashed among other things and the ragged red holes in his shirt spoke of more damage beneath. "Shit, you look a mess," he commented.

"You don't look much better," Sam croaked, a shiver running through him from the cold.

Chris limped over to Sam, and started trying to undo the knots that kept him bound to the chair, but his fingers were too stiff and swollen to manipulate the cable properly. He looked at his hands. The backs were covered with bruises and lacerations that bled freely, he left palm was already blistering from holding the poker, and his right was bleeding copiously from holding the blade. He thought it strange that he felt no pain.

He retrieved the hunting knife from Sangford's gut, and with both hands holding the hilt, tried to saw through the cable. It was slow going, but eventually, the cable around Sam's right hand parted enough for him to yank free.

Curtis took the knife from Keel's hands, and quickly cut the rest of the cables himself. Trying to stand, he fell forward out of the chair onto his hands and knees, crying out as stiffened muscles re-awoke. Keel was by his side, and supported him as best he could. Eventually, Sam made it to his feet, and with an arm around Keel's neck the pair made their way slowly toward the exit.

They heard footsteps running away from them somewhere round a corner. A quick peek into the computer room as they passed it told Keel that Simmons was loose. He heard in the distance a door slam shut, and bolts being driven home.

The sudden weight as Sam passed out, drove Keel to his knees. But without hesitation, he picked his partner up, and slung him over his shoulder, staggering toward the exit he knew was now locked. As they reached the door, an explosion above knocked him off balance, and he remained where he had fallen, covering Sam with his own body, waiting for the shaking to subside. Bits of plaster fell from the walls and ceiling, though the corridor remained intact. The lights flickered out, and somewhere in the distance a generator could be heard starting up, and low emergency lights came on.

When the air had cleared, Chris propped Sam up against the wall, and made sure there was still a pulse. Satisfied that Sam was in no immediate danger, he pulled off his jacket and put it over his shivering partner before heading back to see if he could find something to help him. He thought of the email - he could email Backup, maybe. But that hope was dashed when he saw the computers smashed to pieces. He hadn't heard it happen.

He returned to Sam armed with blankets, sheets and a bucket of water that he could use to make his partner more comfortable. When he took Sam's shirt off, he winced at the bruises and wounds he friend had suffered, and tried to wash the cuts and deep poker wounds as best he could. He ripped the sheets to make bandages, and bound the deep wounds. From the bruises on his ribs, Chris guessed that they had to be at least cracked, and bound them for good measure. He looked at his handiwork with some doubt, he had not been able to get his fingers to work properly, and the bandages were wrapped crudely. It would have to do.

He sat back for a moment wondering what to do. The skeletons started rattling again, letting him know that they would not be waiting much longer. He had to do something to keep them at bay, so reluctant to leave Sam, he went to find another way out.

**********

As Malone and Backup landed in the helicopter near the relay station, time seemed to slow. A man sprinted from the building, head low. Backup jumped to the ground and ran forward to intercept him but she was abruptly propelled backwards by the force of the explosion. The brick walls of the small building seemed to swell impossibly before collapsing amidst spurting flames.

Malone shouted an order for the pilot to call the emergency services, before going to check that Backus was all right, but she was already climbing to her feet by the time he arrived. Together they dragged the other man to his feet and Malone recognised him as the deaf man, Simmons from Curtis' report.

*****

When Sam next came to, he was considerably warmer than he had been previously. He shifted slightly, and felt the weight of the pile of blankets around him. The pain he had been in had subsided to a dull roar, interrupted by footsteps echoing around him. He squinted through one eye, the other refusing to open, and saw Chris pacing up and down, rubbing his arms and muttering.

"You'll wear a hole in the floor," Sam murmured.

"Sam, you're awake!" Chris crouched at his side, helping him to drink some water.

"I'd better not be in this much pain when I'm dead," replied Sam with a feeble grin, which turned to a frown, "Why are we still here? Where's Backup?"

Chris looked suddenly very guilty. "We're trapped down here until someone finds us."

"Someone?" asked Sam, knowing he wasn't going to like the answer.

Chris settled down beside Sam, stealing a part of one of the blankets. "This door," he tapped on the door beside him with his haphazardly bandaged fist, "Is the only way out of here. I checked."

"Someone?" Sam repeated, hopefully.

Chris hesitated before answering, "No one knows we're here except the deaf guy."

"What about Backup or Malone?"

"We... well, to cut a long story, real short, I quit when they wouldn't let me come after you."

"Sangford mentioned something of the sort." Sam thought about it for a moment, "And when you found this place, you couldn't have called them to let them know what you'd done? So that, just maybe, someone would be around to pull your backside out of the fire?"

Another long silence, then, "Maybe," followed by a big sigh, "but I dont think it would have gone too well..." Chris trailed off.

"Well, of course Malone wouldn't be in the best moods, but..." Sam paused as Chris shook his head, then leaned resignedly against the wall. "Sangford said something about you hitting Malone over the head...?"

Chris finally nodded his head ashamedly without meeting Sam's eyes.

"You sodding prat!" Sam was laughing as much as his sore ribs would let him. "D-don't make me laugh!" he gasped.

"Hey, it seemed like a good idea at the time," protested Chris, "Besides, I threw a few other things too."

"You lost your temper, I suppose." Sams gasping breaths subsided as he gained control again.

"Yeah."

"You seem to be doing that a lot recently. I don't even want to think about what you did to Sangford. I just hope you feel better for it."

Another long silence. "I don't feel better at all," Chris sighed.

"What do you mean?" Sam asked, hoping Chris would finally open up.

"It's hard to explain," Chris muttered, "Since I was... that time with Sangford, I've had these... these things, like skeletons running round my head, throwing memories at me I would rather forget. They make feel so angry, and frustrated, so - so guilty, and they won't stop and I have to keep them away." Chris could see them even now, advancing on him, willing to wait no more. Telling him he'd failed again, that Sam would join them soon.

"Why?" asked Sam.

When Chris' voice came next, it was softer, fading away, "Because I'll drown when they catch me..." Sam recognised the glazed, staring look in Keel's eyes from the occasions when he drifted off before.

"Chris, Chris don't go!" he cried as urgently as his sore throat could manage. He could see it was already too late, but he tried again anyway. "Chris, if you can't fight them, face them, send them back where they belong..." he broke off as harsh coughing took him over. When it stopped, he was grateful that Chris had bound him up, even if the makeshift bandages were somewhat crude. But when he wiped the saliva from his mouth, he felt his stomach lurch when he saw it was liberally speckled with blood.

Chris heard Sam's words as if from a great distance, heard him hacking his lungs up, and tried to get back to him, but the skeletons were rattling and would not let him go. He could feel the cold sharp hands holding him down, holding him still, and forcing him to look into bottomless sockets. He resisted with everything he had, but the pull was too strong and he was slowly, inevitably sucked in. This time there was nothing strong enough to pull him back, and he fell headlong, screaming into the waiting hellfire below.

*****

An hour later, the remains of the building had been put out and cooled, the fire brigade telling them that no one could be left alive inside. Through signing, Simmons had explained that the bomb had been a self-destruct device he had rigged up in the event of discovery, and laughed at them when they asked about Curtis and Keel. Backup was only mildly surprised when Malone mentioned Keel's name. But then, she had never really believed Chris would leave Sam behind.

They waited impatiently as the firemen trawled through the rubble, expecting to find bodies, but instead finding the stairs with the door at the bottom blocked by a beam and a pile of bricks. One of them knocked on the metal, calling for someone to answer him. A voice could be heard faintly, and he waved Malone over.

*****

Sam's heart leapt with hope when he heard first the fireman, and then Malone's voice, though he couldn't make out the words. "We're here!" he croaked. "In pieces, but we're here..." he muttered before the darkness swimming at the edge of his vision came over him in a tidal wave of red and black.

*****

It took another hour and a half to hoist the beam away and clear the rubble enough for the door to be opened, and both Malone and Backup were pacing with impatience.

When the door was finally dragged open, they were the first through, despite protests from the firemen.

Backup backed up almost immediately. "Get those ambulance crews down here now!" she barked and one of the firemen jumped to obey her.

It took another hour to get Curtis stabilised and both men to the hospital, over thirty miles away. From the time they had got the door open, to the time Malone last saw them being wheeled into Casualty, neither man had shown any response.

Malone was unsure which worried him more, the constant, unwavering, soulless stare of Chris Keel, or the blood that bubbled almost constantly at Sam Curtis' mouth.

After a long wait, the head nurse came and ushered Malone and Backup into the relatives room to give them the news.

"Are there any relatives we can contact?" was the nurses first question.

"Keel's family are all out of the country," replied Backup, "and Curtis doesn't have any family listed as next of kin."

"And you are...?"

"Mr Malone here, is our boss, and I'm Tina Backus a colleague to them both. And friend," she added almost as an afterthought.

The nurse nodded, "Right then. Mr Keel has a lot of superficial bruising and lacerations with a couple of nasty burns. He'll have to be admitted for some minor surgery on his hands, but the tentative prognosis there is that he will with time and physiotherapy regain full use of both hands. He does seem to be in some sort of catatonic state though; if he doesn't pull out of it in the next twelve hours or so, then we will have do a full psych..."

"Mr Keel has a recent history of, ah, episodes," Malone interrupted, "I'll have our company psychiatrist get in touch."

"Oh. Right. Mr Curtis is in a critical condition, I'm afraid. Aside from heavy bruising and multiple lacerations, he has seven cracked and broken ribs, one of which has punctured his left lung. We're running tests to eliminate the possibility of any further internal bleeding. He has two nasty injuries that seem to have been done to him by a red hot poker, for want of a better description." Her eyebrows rose in anticipation of some comment, but none was forthcoming, so she continued, "Fortunately, they went through muscle, missing any major organs, and the wounds were cauterised. His nose is broken and his jaw cracked. He's on his way to surgery now, and will have to be admitted for probably a couple of weeks."

Malone nodded, "Do what you have to, nurse. Miss Backus, you will stay here and keep me updated, I need to go and sort out the paper work and let everyone else know what's happened."

"Sir," Backup acknowledged Malones order as he left the room.

"If you will come with me, Miss Backus, I'll show you where you can wait upstairs."

"Thank you," Backup replied, and as they walked asked, "Can we get them both into a private room?"

"Beds are scarce, Miss Backus, they will be put wherever we have room," the nurse paused as the entered the elevator. "Mr Curtis' injuries appear to be the result of, well, for want of a better word, torture. Should I be calling the police?"

Backup fished out her CI5 badge, and showed the nurse. "No, you don't need to call the police. For your information, they've both been tortured by a sadist who is no longer a danger to anyone," she put the badge away. "You know, CI5 really would appreciate it if you could put them both in a private room."

The nurse pursed her lips, "I can't promise, but I'll see what I can do."

*****

Malone spent the night in his office, staring at the clock. Reports were stacked up in front of him, but he could not concentrate on them.

Sangford was dead, Simmons on his way to prison and at the very least, Curtis and Keel were still alive. Backus had called at four in the morning to inform him that Curtis was out of surgery and that his prognosis looked good. With Keel there was no change. He had told her to go home and rest.

He would not be happy until both were on their feet but would rather die than admit it to anyone, including himself.

**********

Faces and flames danced around him, as he knelt on the burning floor with hands pressed tightly against his ears, trying to block the agonising pain lancing through his head with no success.

Faces zoomed in and out of his vision with nauseating speed trailing bright, violently clashing colours, the impossibly tall flames, searing cold blue, and burning hot red licked at him constantly.

There was one face he wanted to see though, the one with the soft pink and yellow colours, the one that seemed to radiate cool sanity amongst the burning madness, but it sped away each time he tried to catch it. As they span faster, and the flames grew more intense he started yelling for them to stop, screaming at them to go away. But they only grew more intense, whirling, laughing, spinning, until he curled up on the floor, making himself as small as he could.

Suddenly, everything stopped. It took Chris a long time to realize the burning, spinning maelstrom had stopped. And even when he did, he lay curled up for the longest time.

When he tentatively uncurled and raised his head, he found himself in a bubble with gently swirling pink and yellow colours. The maelstrom could still be seen through the translucent walls, but they couldn't touch him here.

"They can't hurt you unless you let them." A soft familiar voice from nowhere told him. He recognised the subtle perfume that permeated the bubble, and felt safe in his wife's memory. "If you die in here, you die out there," came the voice again. "If you can't fight them, face them."

"I know," he whispered, feeling comforted.

"Of course you do," the voice laughed lightly, a fresh sound, almost forgotten. "We can't tell you anything you don't already know; we're only in your mind."

He didn't respond, but sat cross-legged in the bubble, thinking for a long time until he was ready to face the maelstrom again.

When he did, the pain returned, as the bubble vanished, and the spinning, whirling, violent, burning once more sought to overcome him, but he stood firm, and reaching out, caught a face he knew.

An instant later he was in another bubble, angry blue and bloody red swirling round its walls, the stink of gas and fresh blood making his stomach lurch. He waited for something, anything to happen, and when it didn't, took a deep breath. "I killed you," he said to the bubble that represented his wing man, "It was my fault you crashed. I hit your wing."

"No you didn't, hotshot, it was my own stunt that killed me. You couldn't have known I was that close," came his old friend's easy voice. "Now, stop blaming yourself and go kick butt."

The bubble turned a soft deep blue, the stink evaporating and vanished leaving Chris back in the maelstrom. But this time, it wasn't quite as violent as before, and the pain in his head had receded just a little bit.

There were still many faces battering at him, and knew that some of them were not going to be that easy, so he braced himself, and caught the next face, no, a group of faces in one and found himself in a bubble with clashing reds and greens, interspersed yellow and black flashes, the fetid smell of decaying death and burnt flesh making him gag.

He did not know who these people were; they were women and children he had never even met. He sat and thought about it for a long time, and eventually the pictures came to him. Photographs he had not been meant to see of small ruined bodies, full of shrapnel, or burnt beyond recognition, of the nuns crushed by the building falling on top of them, and he suddenly knew who they were.

"I killed you all," he said brokenly. "I dropped the bomb on your orphanage..."

*****

The nurse plumped Sam's pillows, and he gave her his most charming smile. It might have worked if his swollen jaw had not made it lopsided and his black eye did nothing to help, either. The nurse smiled an amused sort of smile, "Now, now, we'll have none of that in here, Mr Curtis."

"None of what?" he feigned innocence, "I was only going to ask you out to dinner tonight."

"And whisk me off somewhere romantic, like Paris, I suppose?"

"That could be arranged."

"And how exactly are you proposing to get out of this bed?" she pushed him over to straighten the sheets.

"Ouch! Okay, well, when it doesn't hurt so much, then."

"We'll see Mr Curtis," she finished the bed and left the room, smiling again as Sam blew her a kiss.

"Did you see that, Chris?" he looked over at the other bed, where, after four days, Chris was still unresponsive. "She likes me," Sam continued as if his partner was listening attentively. "I mean, she didn't say no, now did she? Must mean I've got a chance," Sam sighed, and groaned as he breathed too deeply. He spent some time insulting his partner, having been given the opportunity, but quickly got bored when the insults weren't returned.

Backup arrived shortly after lunch to see how they were doing, with Spencer on her heels.

"Hey," said the petite Canadian, "They said you were awake today. How are you feeling?"

"Oh, you know, blooming," Sam replied, yawning. "Noisy room-mate though, won't stop talking."

Backup glanced sadly over at Chris, who still stared at the ceiling. "Well, I've got some news for you. Guess who AvengerUK is."

"AvengerUK...? Backup, what are you talking about?"

"Oh, right, I guess you didn't see the disk Chris had on him, then."

"No, I guess I didn't."

"There was a mole in CI5. Sangford knew about all of us..."

"Yeah, I think I knew that. He told me Chris had gone back to the States, and that you were due to clear his flat up the other night, he was going to kidnap you when you did that."

"Whoa," Backup shivered, "That's scary. Anyhow, the disk had an email on it from AvengerUK confirming that Malone wasn't doing anything about Sangford."

"Okay, so AvengerUK is the mole. With you so far."

"We traced the email address and the account was set up just after Sangford went to prison, and who do you think they'd put in as their real name?"

"No one puts their real name in those things," commented Spencer.

"Shut up, you," snapped Backup.

"Tell me," said Sam resignedly.

"Brian Roberts," Backup proclaimed. "After that, finding the mole was easy."

"I'm lost. Brian Roberts is dead," Sam said.

"Uh-huh, and someone wanted to avenge his death."

"But he killed himself."

"Yeah, and AvengerUK blamed Malone and CI5."

"Not Susan Roberts? She doesn't even work for CI5. How could she even know -?"

"You're right," said Backup, looking pleased with herself. "It's not Susan Roberts."

"So who else is there?"

"He was seeing someone."

"Now, how was I supposed to know that?"

"You weren't. But Susan Roberts knew, and Susan knew who it was. It was a bit of a shock when the poor woman met her in the CI5 offices."

"What are you talking about?"

"This all came out when Malone went to see her yesterday. He had got as far as working out that AvengerUK was someone out to avenge his death, and his first conclusion was Susan. Anyway, it came out somewhere in the conversation, that on Malone's advice, she had gone to see the CI5 psychiatrist as there was something that could maybe help Louise out. She was pretty shocked to see Geraldine, Brian's girlfriend before he died."

"Geraldine... Geraldine Brooks? The shrink?"

"Yep. She was surprised because Brian had introduced her as a private psychiatrist, which of course, he would do. Anyway, Malone went to see Brooks, and she had a breakdown right in front of him, confessing all. She had full access to all the personnel and case files, and it wasn't hard for her to find out what we were doing."

"She must have had strong feelings for Roberts then."

"Obsessed was the word Susan Roberts used. Which reminds me, it looks like she and Malone have patched up their differences. Nudge, nudge, wink, wink."

"Oh, Backup, that's disgusting! He wouldn't!"

"No, but what a rumour to start!"

The sound of laughter punctuated by Sam's groans as his ribs protested painfully, rang round the room.

"What's the joke?" rasped a voice from the other bed.

"See," said Sam gleefully, "I told you he won't shut up!" even as he hit the call button.

"How long?" Chris asked, too befuddled to even try and understand the joke.

"Four days," replied Backup. "How are you feeling?"

"I guess that explains why I feel so crap, then." He brought a hand up to rub at his eyes and frowned at the boxing glove bandages around it.

"What's the matter?" smiled the nurse as she came in.

"Sleeping beauty just woke up." Sam indicated the other bed. Suddenly business like, she went to his partner and closed the curtains around him. Two minutes later, a small parade of doctor's and nurses came in and out of the room, tut-ting and shaking their heads.

Half an hour later, the room was quiet once more and the nurse re-opened the curtains, to reveal Chris snoring gently. "Don't wake him up," she instructed, "He's quite exhausted, and has a lot of sleep to catch up on." With a smile and a wink for Sam, she departed.

"She likes me," Sam told Backup and Spencer confidently.

*****

Malone almost smiled when Miss Backus told him that Curtis was well on the road to recovery, and that Keel had come round. He thought briefly about going to see them. But changed his mind.

Almost twenty-four hours after Chris had come out of his stupor, Curtis was watching his partner sleep. He couldn't remember ever seeing him sleep so soundly, and he was hopeful that the nightmare was over. In a little while, Sam noticed Chris' eyes open and staring at him. Chris smiled, and Sam smiled back, relieved to see the soulless look gone.

"So," he said conversationally, "Any skeletons left in the closet?"

Chris grinned, "One or two." He laughed at Sam's frown. "But theyre happy to leave me alone unless or until. Whatever. How are the ribs?"

"Sore, so if you value your life, don't make me laugh." He groaned at the evil grin Chris gave him and knew he would regret issuing the threat.

*****

Epilogue

"Bottom line, please, Miss Carrington," Malone snapped impatiently at the woman on the monitor.

"The bottom line, sir," Julia Carrington replied calmly, "is that Mr Curtis is not yet cleared for active duty."

Malone sighed, it had been nearly three months since the second incident with Sangford, and his top agents had bounced back quickly, but now he was experiencing a strong sense of deja vu.

"Mr Keel can go back on active duty as of this afternoon, in fact I believe he is heading for your office far faster than the speed limit allows. Mr Curtis, however, seems to have dealt with captivity relatively well, and I have no problem with putting him back on active duty. However, Dan Sykes thinks he'll be ready in another couple of weeks, but at the moment his reactions are still a little slow due to the remnants of pain he doesn't admit to having."

"Thank you, Miss Carrington," Malone breathed a deep sigh of relief. "Oh, and by the way, welcome to CI5."

It only took five minutes before Chris Keel appeared at Malone's door, and the CI5 boss motioned for him to enter and close the door.

"Mr Keel," he started seriously, "Because of your actions in stopping Sangford, I have allowed you to convalesce and retrain at CI5's expense and using our facilities."

"Yes sir," Chris felt his stomach twist. He had been dreading this confrontation and had almost convinced himself that Malone would let what happened slide.

"However, the fact remains that you assaulted me, and gave your resignation, which I accepted and put into motion."

"About that, sir..."

"Don't interrupt."

"No, sir."

"As you were apparently not in your right mind at the time, do you wish to be reconsidered for CI5?"

"Yes, sir!" Chris replied without hesitation.

"I don't like having to put capable men back in at the bottom. You do realise that you would have to work your way back up. Could you cope with being the office - what's the word you use? Gopher? Making the coffee, that sort of thing?"

Chris gritted his teeth, "Whatever it takes, sir."

"Well, I'm not sure, I hate all the paperwork involved. And besides which, you assaulted me," Malone's voice dropped to a dangerous tone, "and if you ever do that to me again, I will take your gun and shoot you myself. Do I make myself clear?"

With a gulp, Chris nodded, "Yes sir!"

After a long silence, Malone said, "After I left that file in your apartment, I felt it unfair to let your resignation proceed any further until the case had been resolved. Miss Backus has your firearm and peripherals, now I suggest you keep Mr Curtis out of mischief." He glanced past Keel to see Curtis waiting patiently outside. "I expect you both back here in two weeks."

"You... you mean..."

"Go, Mr Keel." Malone started to pick up the topmost of his ever-growing pile of files. "No, hold on a moment. One question, I know that the man who went to Washington in your place was an Andrew Davies. But who is he?"

Keel grinned. "A taxi driver."

"I know that but I don't understand."

"I was serious about going back to the States, but I was worried about Sam. I took a cab to the airport, but the driver, Andy talked me into at least seeing Sam was okay. For a little cash he was up for a free flight to the States, so long as I took his car back to the taxi company."

"So, it was a spur of the moment thing."

"Yeah."

"So, you didn't leave your wife's picture behind on purpose then."

"No, I was kind of relieved when I found it still in the flat though."

"Thank you, you can go now, Mr Keel." As he watched Keel and Curtis walk away, his mouth quirked as he held back a grin.

He sat back at his desk, feeling more content than he had in a long time. He opened the top drawer and pulled out the package. He thought about Louise. The new tests were not working, and he feared that it was too late for her. He opened the package to find a framed photo of himself with Louise and Brian. They were all laughing, celebrating Louise's twenty-fifth birthday. It had been shortly after that, that he'd made his number one rule, number one.

Never get emotionally involved.

The End

 


End file.
